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HISTORY OF THE 1APTISTS: 



TRACED BY THEIR 



VITAL PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES, 



FROM THE 



TIME OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST 



TO THE PRESENT. 



BY THOMAS ARMITAGE, D.D., LL.D., 

Forty years Pastor of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, New York. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
BY J. L. M. CURRY, D.D., L.L.D., 

Late American Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Spain. 



ILLiUSTPlATEr) U3~2" ISO EIISTG-DFt.-A.^rillKrGS.. 



REVISED EDITION". 




NEW YORK: 

dfc GO. 
1893. 



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Copyriglit, 1S93, Toy 

THOMAS ARMITAGE, D.D., LL.D., 

NEW "ITODPLKl. 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



PREFACE. 



EARLY in the summer of A. D. 1882 the publishers of this work called upon 
the author to confer on the desirableness of issuing a Baptist history. He 
laid before them the histories extant by our writers, commending their merits. 
They said that, after examination of these, whilst each filled a peculiar niche in 
Baptist history, they were satisfied that a larger and more comprehensive work was 
demanded by the present public want, and requested him to undertake the task of 
preparing one. 

This request was declined on account of its inherent difficulty and the pressure 
of a large New York pastorate. He submitted two or three weighty names of 
those who, in his judgment, were in every way better qualified for the work, among 
them the late Dr. "William R. Williams, and wrote letters of introduction to these 
several gentlemen. In a few weeks they returned, stating that they had consulted 
not only those referred to, but other well-known Baptist writers, each of whom 
suggested that, as the author had devoted years to the examination of the subject, 
he owed it to his denomination to write and publish thereon. 

After fuller consideration he consented to make the attempt, with the distinct 
understanding that he should be entirely unfettered in regard to the principle on 
which the work should be written. He saw at a glance that as Baptists are in no 
way the authors or offspring of an ecclesiastical system, that, therefore, their history 
cannot be written on the current methods of ecclesiastical history. The attempt 
to show that any religious body has come down from the Apostles an unchanged 
people is of itself an assumption of infallibility, and contradicts the facts of history. 

Truth only is changeless, and only as any people have held to the truth in its 
purity and primitive simplicity has the world had an unchanging religion. The 
truth has been held by individual men and scattered companies, but never in un- 
broken continuity by any sect as such. Sect after sect has appeared and held it for 
a time, then has destroyed itself by mixing error with the truth ; again, the truth 
has evinced its divinity by rising afresh in the hands of a newly organized people, 
to perpetuate its diffusion in the earth. 

It is enough to show that what Christ's churches were in the days of the Apos- 
tles, that the Baptist churches of to-day find themselves. The truths held by them 
have never died since Christ gave them, and in the exact proportion that any people 
have maintained these truths they have been the true Baptists of the world. The 



iv PREFACE. 

writer, therefore, refused to be bound in his investigations by an iron obligation to 
show a succession of people who have held all the principles, great and small, of any 
sect now existing — no more and no less. 

When Roger Williams left his followers they were in great trepidation lest 
they had not received baptism in regular succession from the Apostles, as if any 
body else had. They heard, however, that the Queen of Hungary had a list of reg- 
ularly baptized descendants from the Apostles, and were half persuaded to send 
their brother, Thomas Olney, to obtain it at her hands. Still, on the second sober 
thought, they could not swallow this dose of the essence of popery, and concluded 
not to make themselves ridiculous. Whereupon Backus solemnly says, that at 
length they ' concluded such a course was not expedient, but believing that now 
they were got into the right way, determined to persevere therein.' Thus, once 
more, wisdom was justified in her children, under the application of the radical 
anti-Romish principle that the New Testament is the only touch-stone of Chris- 
tian history. The men who obey it in all things to-day, the men who have obeyed 
it since it was written, and the men who wrote it, are of one flock, under the one 
Shepherd, whose holy body John buried beneath the waters of the Jordan. 

The author has aimed, so far as in him lay, to command accuracy of statement 
with a style adapted to the common reader in our churches, thus especially reaching 
and interesting the young and making the work a reliable reference for all. 

A lamentable lack of intelligence exists amongst us in regard to our origin and 
principles as Baptists. This book is written for the purpose of putting within the 
reach of all such facts as shall inform them of their religious history and what it. 
cost the fathers of our faith to defend the same. 

While cumbrous notes have been dispensed with, yet, for the benefit of those 
who honestly desire to inform themselves, references upon important points to au- 
thorities, mostly Pedobaptists, are given at the close of the volume. For the same 
reason the work is a defense and an exposition of our distinctive principles, as well as 
a history. Biography is here combined with history proper, and numerous portraits 
are given, chiefly of those not now living. 

The engravings of the volume, with the exception of the steel-plate of the 
author, have been executed by the experienced hand of John D. Felter, Esq., whose 
ability and artistic skill are widely recognized. The letter-press and mechanical finish 
of the book are all that can be desired, even in this age of elegant printing, and be- 
speak the public favor for the gentlemanly publishers, who, by their enlarged 
business generosity, have secured to the reading public this volume in the best style 
of the printing art. 

Whilst the author has noticed at length the rise and progress of the Baptists in 
the several States of the Union, he has not been able to present, with but few ex- 
ceptions, the history of local churches and associations. To have attempted this 
would have extended the work far beyond the prescribed limit, and, owing to the 



PREFACE. v 

great number of Baptist churches, the result must necessarily have been meager and 
unsatisfactory. 

The author has done his work in all candor, with a sincere regard to the pur- 
pose of history and the maintenance of truth. He sends it forth with the prayer 
that it may fulfil its mission and afford profit to all who peruse its pages. Despite 
the utmost care to avoid mistakes, it is very likely that some have crept into the 
text, but on discovery they will be promptly corrected hereafter. 

It was desirable to seek the aid of several young scholars, specialists in their 
departments, who have rendered valuable service by the examination of scarce books 
and documents, and submitted their own suggestions for consideration. Of these it 
is specially pleasant to mention : 

Rev. W. W. Everts, Jr., of Philadelphia, who has devoted a large portion of his 
life to the study of ecclesiastical history,, and has had rare opportunities, as a student 
in Germany, to make himself acquainted with the records of the Continental Bap- 
tists. He has made his investigations with great care and enthusiasm : 

Henry C. Vedder, Esq., a junior editor of the ' Examiner,' and an editor of the 
' Baptist Quarterly.' He is especially at home in all that relates to the Baptists in 
the time of the English Commonwealth, and has shown superior ability in examining 
that period : 

Rev. George E. Horr, Jr., of Charlestown, Mass., who is thoroughly acquainted 
with the American period of our history, and in his researches has made free use of 
the libraries at Cambridge and Boston, turning them to most profitable account. 

The first two of these gentlemen have also read the proofs of the respective 
departments to which they have thus contributed. 

Rev. J. Spinther James, of Wales, was recommended by Rev. Hugh Jones, 
late president of the Llangollen College, as quite competent to make investigations 
in the history of the Welsh Baptists. These he has made and submitted, having 
had special facilities for information in the library of that institution. 

Hon. Horatio Gates Jones, of Philadelphia, consented to prepare a full Baptist 
bibliography, but a press of legal business has prevented the accomplishment of his 
work, after devoting much time to the subject. 

The portraits of these gentlemen are grouped, and preface the American de- 
partment. It is but honorable to add, that none of these scholars are to be held re- 
sponsible for any statement of fact or for any sentiment found in the book ; that is 
entirely assumed by the author. 

Hearty and sincere thanks are hereby rendered to Frederick Saunders, Esq., 
librarian of the Astor Library, for many attentions, especially for the use of Garrucci, 
in photographing ten of the illustrations found in the chapter on Baptismal Pictures ; 
to Dr. George H. Moore, of the Lenox Library, for the use of the great Bunyan 
collection there ; and to Henry E. Lincoln, Esq., of Philadelphia, and Rev. Daniel 
C. Potter, D.D., of New York, for photographs used. 



vi PREFACE. 

The author owes a debt of gratitude also to T. J. Conant, D.D., LL.D., for his 
kindness in reading the proof-sheets of the chapters on the Baptism of Jesus and the 
Apostolic Churches as Models ; to Heman Lincoln, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical 
History at the Newton Theological Seminary, who examined the proofs on the 
Second and Third Centuries ; to Albert H. Newman, D.D., LL.D., Professor of 
Church History in the Toronto Theological Seminary, who read all the chapters on 
the Continental Baptists from that on the Waldensians to that on the Netherlands; 
to Eev. D. McLane Reeves, D.D., of Johnstown, N. Y.. who read the chapter on 
the Waldensians ; to Rev. Owen Griffith, editor of the ' Y Wawr,' Utica, N. Y., who 
read the proof of the chapter on the Welsh Baptists; to Henry S. Burrage, D.D., 
editor of 'Zion's Advocate,' who examined the two chapters on the Swiss Baptists ; 
to S. F. Smith, D.D., of Mass., who has aided largely in the chapter on Missions; 
to Reuben A. Guild, LL.D., Librarian of Brown University, who read most of the 
proofs of the chapters on the American Baptists ; to J. E. Wells, M.A., of Toronto, 
who furnished much material for the chapter on the Baptists in British America; 
and to Rev. J. Wolfenden, of Chicago, 111., for many facts concerning the Austra- 
lian Baptists. Each of these scholars made invaluable suggestions, laying both the 
author and the reader under great obligations. 

Acknowledgments of debt are also made to Rev. William Norton, A.M., of 
Chulmleigh, England, and to Rev. Joseph Angus, D.D., LL.D., Principal of Regents' 
Park College, London, for the examination of works not easily found in this coum 
try. Also to William Cathcart, D.D., of Philadelphia; Henry G. Weston, D.D., of 
Crozer Theological Seminary ; to Howard Osgood, D.D., of the Rochester Theolog- 
ical Seminary ; to Ebenezer Dodge. D.D., LL.D., president of Madison University ; 
to Rev. Frederic Denison, of Providence, R. I. ; to Hon. William H. Potter, to Hon. 
L. M. Lawson, Roger H. Lyon, Esq., and Dr. S. Ayers, of New York; and to D. 
Henry Miller, D.D., of Connecticut. The General Index has been prepared by Mr. 
Henry F. Reddall, of New York. Many other friends have kindly assisted the 
author in various ways in the preparation of the work, who will please accept his 
devout thanks ; and last, but not least, those members of the press who have volun- 
tarily spoken so kindly of the work on the inspection of portions of the manuscript 
personally or by their correspondents. 

THOMAS ARMITAGE. 
Parsonage, No. 2 West 46th St., New York, 



INTRODUCTION. 



A HISTORY of the Baptists should be understood in its objects and aims; 
and cleared, in the beginning, of misapprehension and perversion. It is 
not the history of a nationality, a race, an organization, but of a people, ' traced 
by their vital principles and gospel practices.' The unity to be exhibited and 
demonstrated was not brought about by force, by coercion of pains and penalties, 
by repressive and punitive Acts of Conformity ; but by the recognition and 
adoption of a common authoritative and completed divine standard. 

The error of many previous attempts has consisted in the assumption that a 
Church and Christianity were identical. We have had numerous and voluminous 
histories of Churches and creeds ; and untold abuses have resulted from confounding 
them with Christ's people, with New Testament doctrines and practices. This 
petitio principii has been the source of much evil. Its hurtful influence has been 
seen and felt in the arrogant pretensions of these ' Churches,' their alliance with 
and use of civil authority, the abuses which have come from unrestrained and 
irresponsible power ; and in the revulsion and extreme rebound of persons and 
communities, when reason and conscience and science and patriotism have exposed 
the deceptiveness of claims, and the hungering soul has had no satisfying response to 
its clamors for the bread of life. Many infidels have taken refuge in deism, atheism, 
agnosticism, because the}' in their ignorance supposed the ' Church,' as they saw it, 
to be the embodiment of Christianity, the authorized exponent of Jesus Christ. 
Much of the ridicule of priestcraft and denial of the inspiration of the Scriptures 
is directly traceable to the corruption of the clergy, to autos-da-fe to the churchly 
opposition to science and support of political tyranny and kingly wrongs. The 
genesis of the painful skepticism, so abundant in France, Spain and Italy, one need 
not search far to find. ' Le Clericalisme, voila Vennerni ' is the belief of many. 

Bossuet advised Catholics, in their controversies with Protestants, to begin 
with the Church. A Church, in its idea, attributes, organization, membership, 
officers, ordinances, has been the battle-ground of ecclesiastical and religious dispute ; 
and literature, thought, public opinion, government, manners, worship, have been so 
much affected and controlled by these disputes, that it is not easy now to bring back 
a discussion, or confine it, to the real, primal, essential question. 

The idea of a New Testament Church is more subjective than objective. A 
Church is not an a priori organization, as innate ideas are a priori. 



•"u INTRODUCTION. 

It is not an antecedent agency or instrumentality for the conversion of men. 
Men are not members by natural birth, by inheritance, by legislative act, by priestly 
rite. Believers are not made such by the opus operatum of Church ordinances. They 
dwell in Christ and Christ dwells in them by the consciousness of grace imparted. 
They came together into the primitive Churches by an elective affinity, an inwrought 
spiritual aptitude and capacity ; and constituted a brotherhood of the baptized, a 
holy fellowship of the redeemed, a community of regenerated men and women, 
united to one another by the same animating spirit. A New Testament Church, 
the apostolic model, was a result, a product, an evolution from antecedent facts and 
principles. The Christ did not constitute a Church in advance of preaching and 
salvation and baptism, and endow it with powers and functions to execute the great 
commission. As the apostles and disciples preached, men and women heard, 
believed, and were baptized. The believers, coming together in local assemblies, 
were empowered to perform certain acts for edification and usefulness. These simple 
organizations were in the early days of Christianity the divinely approved Churches. 
A Church is no more a pre-ordained agency, an exterior antecedent instrumentality 
for saving men and women than the fruit is a pre-existing agency for propagating 
its kind. Both are evolutions and necessities in the wisdom and providence of God. 
From certain elemental principles — the logical and spiritual consequences of regen- 
eration, faith, love and obedience — Churches, with their membership, organizations, 
officers and ordinances, are evolved. 

The evolution is none the less such because scriptural precepts can be produced ; 
for in the sense in which the word is used, these commands are evolutions of the 
wisdom and grace of God. It is readily seen how too much importance can be 
attached to forms and organizations and officers. Christ taught truth, promulgated 
ideas, sowed seed. Character, life, organism, union, followed. Philosophy, politics, 
science, religion, are valuable not as the outcome of a pre-ordained scheme, but 
as the product and growth of correlated thought, ideas actualized, principles, 
abstractions, put into concrete, vitalized forms. Moral and spiritual should precede 
and dominate the physical as ideas precede form and organism. "Whatever is 
durable, immortal ; whatever conduces to man's well-being, to the development of 
humanity which had its genesis in divine thought, must in its ultimate analysis be 
traceable to fundamental principles, to eternal verities. Civilization, government, 
religion, must be imperfect, ephemeral, and fail of their noblest end if not based 
on an intelligent and cordial adoption of the right, the true, the imperishable. Just 
in so far as mere expediency controls there will be superficiality, imperfectness, 
failure. A Christian Church must come from the divine thought and seek the divine 
end. A Church in the true New Testament idea, so originated and wrought out, 
presents a perfect ideal, ever stimulating, beckoning onward and upward, never per- 
fectly attained. It exalts God's word, magnifies Christ's work, relies on the Spirit's 
presence and power, individualizes and honors man, teaches his personal responsi- 



INTR OB UCTION. ix 

bility and privileges, and necessitates bis completest moral and mental development. 
Individualism runs through New Testament Christianity. Eight of private judg- 
ment in religious matters, the requirement of personal faith and obedience, leads 
inevitably to civil freedom. Individuality in relation to God and Christ and salva- 
tion, the Scriptures and judgment and eternity, conducts by an irresistible sequence 
to freedom of thought and speech and press to popular government, to unfettered 
scientific investigation, to universal education. Soul liberty cannot be dissevered 
from civil freedom. All modern reforms in government, broadening from the few 
to the many, can be traced to the recognition more or less complete of man's 
personal relations to God, and to the rejection of sponsors, priests and mediators, in 
faith and obedience and study. Intense religious activity quickens enterprise in all 
proper directions. Free thought on grand religious problems awakens thought on 
other topics. Communion with the King of kings, free and constant and invited 
access to him, makes one feel that the artificial distinctions of earth are transitory, 
and that a joint heir with the Christ is superior in freedom and nobleness and 
possibilities to any sovereign on the throne of the Caesars. 

New Testament Churcbes in their idea and ends have been perverted. From 
various causes they have degenerated into human organizations, and have been so 
assimilated to States and Nations as to be scarcely distinguishable from the king- 
doms of this world. The tests or marks of a State would not be inapplicable to 
' The Church ' as it has acted, or claimed to act. It has been bound into a body 
politic, has exercised through the medium of a common government independ- 
ent sovereignty and control over all persons and things within its boundaries, 
has entered into international relations with other political communities, 
has represented itself by embassadors and legates, has partitioned continents and 
oceans, has interfered in successions, has acquired territory, has been known 
by all the indicia of temporal authority. Becoming a secular power, it has 
claimed equal authority over many distinct kingdoms, exacted from their 
citizens an allegiance upon oath above that which the municipal law of their 
own country could impose, claimed Empires as fiefs, exacted oaths of vassal- 
age and collected feudal revenues, absolved sovereigns and subjects from their 
oaths; claimed for the persons and the property of the officers it employed and the 
law by which they were to be governed a status wholly distinct from that of the 
subjects of the country where such officers were ; stirred up crusades against refrac- 
tory kings and republics, against schismatical princes, against pagans, against 
heretics ; through the Inquisition ' secured to the ecclesiastical authority the arm of 
the secular power without any right of inquiry or intervention as a condition of its 
use, ' and put infidelity to the Church on the same footing as rebellion against the 
throne. All along through twelve centuries Churches have claimed the right to 
enter into alliances with civil governments, to direct executive, legislative and 
judicial action, and to use the power of the State for the execution of their decrees. 



Jt IJSTTB OB UCTION. 

The claim of a Church to universal dominion is, like the claim of Spain and 
Portugal, based on papal grants, to the exclusive navigation, commerce and fish- 
eries of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It is, however, just as reasonable 
as the pretense that a parish can be set off by metes and bounds, or that a terri- 
torial area can be assigned to a particular minister to exercise therein exclusive 
ecclesiastical and spiritual functions. The assertion of a Church, or of a man, to 
supremacy over human conscience and judgments, is less defensible than a claim to 
special occupancy of land and water. Some nations have been driven to renounce, 
as against another, a right to parts of the ocean ; but a man, in the image of the 
Creator, cannot surrender his inalienable liberty of worship or right of free thought. 

The continuity of a Church is not like that of a State. There is little analogy 
between the two. One cannot by natural birth, by inheritance, by purchase, by 
the will of the flesh, become a member of the kingdom of Christ. A State may 
change its form of civil constitution from a monarchy, an aristocracy, to a republic, 
to any imaginable shape ; but it does not lose its personality, nor forfeit its rights, 
nor become discharged from its obligations. Prance under President Grevy is the 
France of Napoleon or Louis Fourteenth. It retains its identity through all muta- 
tions. The corporate body succeeds to the rights and obligations of its predecessor. 
' Idem enim est pqpulus Romanus, sub regibus, consulibus, imperatoribus? It 
would require a vast stretch of credulity or ignorance to imagine the hierarchies 
of the present day to be the same as the Churches to which Paul wrote his letters. 
Conditions of citizenship, descent or alienation of property, distribution of estates, 
may be changed by human governments ; but the conditions of membership in a 
New Testameut Church are unalterable because they are spiritual and God- 
prescribed. 

Our books contain treaties in reference to intervention by one nation in the 
internal affairs of another upon the ground of religion, and learned discussions as 
to the right of law-making departments of government to prescribe, modify, or 
interpret articles of religious faith. It seems that in England even there is one and 
the same identical law-giver for Church and State. The Parliament, in the Act of 
Uniformity of Elizabeth, instituted the Thirty -nine Articles of Religion and put 
together a Book of Common Prayer. The atrocious cruelties of the religious per- 
secutions, ' the execrable violations of the rights of mankind,' to use the strong 
denunciation of Sir James Mackintosh, have grown out of the claims of government 
and Churches to control and punish men's opinions. An Establishment is neces- 
sarily and always a usurpation and a wrong. A New Testament Church cannot, by 
possibility, be in alliance with a State and retain its scripturalness, its conformity 
with apostolical precept. Capability of such a union is the demonstration of a 
departure from a primitive model. 

A tree is known by its fruits. An Establishment, ex vi termini, implies dis- 
crimination, irregularity, injustice, an arrogant claim to make Caesar determine 



INTB OB TJCTION. xi 

what belongs to God. Things will follow tendencies. Those permanently sup- 
ported by the government sustain the government and resist concessions of popular 
liberty. In the time of Henry VIII. marriages in England were regulated by the 
canon law of Rome, 'grounded often on no higher principle than that of papal 
caprice ; ' and when the king's conscience and conduct demanded it, the Church 
found a semblance of excuse for his lust and tyranny. When Elizabeth was on the 
throne the Archbishop of Canterbury, to quiet some doubts as to her legitimacy, was 
ordered to draw up a ' Table of Degrees ' which would place her succession on 
scriptural grounds. The disingenuous adulation of the dedication to King James 
in the ' Authorized Version ' of the Bible is disgraceful to those who signed it. 

The ecclesiastical Peers in the House of Lords uniformly and almost as a unit 
have, to quote from Joseph Hume, ' been the aiders and abettors of every tyranny 
and oppression which the people have been compelled to endure.' Bills for remov- 
ing Roman Catholic disabilities, Jewish disabilities, University tests, and to open 
church-yards to Non-conformist burial services, etc., etc., have found in them steadfast 
opponents. 

Joseph Chamberlain, in 1885, in a public address, put this pertinent inquiry : 
' Is it not a singular thing that of all the great movements which have abated the 
claims of privileges or destroyed the power of tyrants, which have freed the nation 
or classes from servitude and oppression, or raised the condition of the great mass 
of the people, there is scarcely one which has owed any thing to the initiative or 
encouragement of the great ecclesiastical organization which lays claim to exclusive 
national authority and support ? ' 

This hostility to popular rights and the removal of abuses is the natural con- 
sequence of the system of union of Church and State. Since the Reformation 
there has been much progress in securing the free exercise and enjoyment of 
religious profession and worship without discrimination or preference. Our Federal 
and State Constitutions, following the lustrous precedent of Rhode Island, have 
embodied religious liberty in American organic law ; and our example and the 
undisputed success of voluntaryism are teaching lessons of freedom to the crushed 
millions of earth. In all civilized countries toleration is practiced. Wearily and 
painfully the work goes on. Privileges are wrested from reluctant hands, always 
after stubborn resistance, never once through gracious concession. Even when laws 
are repealed the social stigma is vigorously applied. ' Have any of the Pharisees 
believed on Him % ' is constantly rung in our ears. Truth will prevail. Sire 
bequeaths to son freedom's flag, and establishments and endowments must yield to 
religious equality before the law. It is a delusion to imagine that the final victory 
has been won. Prerogative and privilege, sanctioned by antiquity and buttressed 
by wealth and power, will contest every inch. The demands of the pope for the 
restoration of his temporalities, and his lamentations over his voluntary imprison- 
ment in the Vatican, show that Cardinal Manning spoke ex cathedra when he 



ni INTR OB UCTION. 

affirmed that the Unam Sanctam Decretal and the Syllabus contain the doctrines 
of Ultramontanism and Christianity. Pius IX., in a letter, August 7, 1873, to 
William, King of Prussia, claimed that every one who had been baptized belonged 
in some way or other to the pope. In July, 1884, a Cuban archbishop declared 
in the Spanish Cortes that ' The rights of the Roman pontiff, including the rights 
of temporal power over the States, were inalienable and cannot be restricted ; and 
were before and superior to the so-called new rights of cosmopolitan revolution and 
the barbarous law of force.' 

The tenacity with which the Establishment in England and Scotland holds od 
to its power and perquisites, and the success up to this time in foiling the 
Liberationists, are proofs that the battle of a thousand years is still to be prolonged. 

The ' History of the Baptists ' shows the victories of the past and the true 
principles of the contest if permanent success is to be attained. Justification by 
personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ lays the-axe at the root of all sacramentalism, 
sacerdotalism, alliance of Church with State and interference with soul liberty. 
The entire sufficiency and authority of the inspired word of God, the right of 
private judgment, the individuality of all religious duties, a converted church- 
membership and the absolute headship of the Christ, will give success to efforts for 
a pure Christianity. 

Dr. Armitage has exceptional qualifications for writing a history of the 
Baptists. His birth, education, religious experience, connection with England and 
the United States, habits of investigation, scholarly tastes and attainments and 
mental independence, fit him peculiarly for ascertaining hidden facts and pushing 
principles to their logical conclusion. 

J. L. M. Cubby. 



CONTENTS 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

PAGE 

Have we a Visible Succession of Baptist Churches down from the Apostles ? 1 

NEW TESTAMENT PERIOD. 

CHAPTER I. 
John, Jesus and the Apostles 13 

CHAPTER H. 
The Officers and Ordinances of the Apostolic Church 31 

CHAPTER HI. 
The Baptist Copy of the Apostolic Churches 50 

POST-APOSTOLIC TIMES. 

CHAPTER I. 
The Second Century and Onward 57 

CHAPTER H. 
Baptism and Baptisteries in the Middle Ages 71 

CHAPTER HI. 
Ancient Baptismal Pictures 84 

CHAPTER TV. 
Germany 104 

CHAPTER V. 
The "Waldensians 109 

BAPTISTS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 

CHAPTER I. 
Immersion in England ... 128 

CHAPTER II. 
Immersion in England — Continued — Persecution 140 

CHAPTER IH. 

British Baptists — John Smyth — Commonwealth 156 

CHAPTER rV. 
British Baptists — John Bunyan 177 

CHAPTER V. 
British Baptists — Commonwealth and the Restoration 189 

CHAPTER VI. 

British Baptists — Liberty of Conscience — Associations — The Stennetts — Irish Baptists 204 



xiv CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Scotch and English Baptists— Missions — Men of Note 221 

CHAPTER VIH. 
British Baptists— The Welsh Baptists 247 

THE AMERICAN BAPTISTS. 

CHAPTER I. 

The Colonial Period — Pilgrims and Puritans 268 

CHAPTER II. 
The Providence and Newport Churches 278 

CHAPTER III. 
Chauncey — Knollys — Miles and the Swansea Church 294 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Boston Baptists 306 

CHAPTER V. 
New Centers of Baptist Influence — South Carolina — Maine — Pennsylvania — New Jersey 324 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Baptists of Virginia 344 

CHAPTER VII. 
Baptists of Connecticut and New York 359 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Baptists of North Carolina, Maryland, New Hampshire, Vermont and Georgia 377 

CHAPTER IX. 
Baptists and the Revolutionary "War 396 

CHAPTER X. 

The American Baptists and Constitutional Liberty 416 

CHAPTER XI. 
Foreign Missions — Asia and Europe 434 

CHAPTER XII. 
Other Baptist Missions — Foreign and Home 456 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Preachers — Educators — Authors 472 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Theological Seminaries — Literature — Revivals 492 

CHAPTER XV. 
Bible Translation and Bible Societies 513 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Baptists in British America and Australia 539 

Supplementary Chapter 563 

Confession of Schleitheim 577 

General Statistics for the U. S 581 

General Index 593 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Abraham's Pool at Hebron 13 

Ampulla, The 100 

Ancient Baptistery at Aquileia 76 

Ancient Church Edifice in Cornwall 57 

Ancient Font at St. Martin's, Canterbury. . 128 
Ancient Roman Bath, "Vatican Museum .... 77 

Ancient Ship 30 

Ancient Stone Font in Cornwall 58 

Bainham, James, at St. Paul's 67 

Baptism of Jesus facing 15 

Baptism at Rheinsberg 108 

Baptism in the Thirteenth Century 102 

Baptistery at Florence 79 

Baptistery at Pisa 71 

Baptistery in Catacombs of St. Ponziano 

facing 93 

Baptistery of Bishop Paulinus 83 

Baptistery of St. John Lateran 79 

Baptizing in the River Ebbw facing 247 

Barada River — Damascus in the Distance. . 27 

Barnabas Introducing Paul to Peter 28 

Basle on the Rhine 70 

Beheading Block, The 107 

Brescia 63 

Bunyan's Cottage and Forge at Elstow .... 187 

Bunyan's Monument 185 

Bunyan's Tomb 184 

Burning of Anne Askew and. Others at 

Smitlifield facing 151 

Burning of Mrs. Elizabeth Gaunt. . . .facing 200 

Castelluzo, Cave of 126 

Christians Given to the Lions in the Roman 

Amphitheater 59 

Church, The, as a Ship, on Christ the 

Fish 85 

Cloven Tongues as of Fire 91 

Constantine the Great 61 

Conversion and Baptism 89 

Cup of Alba 100 



PAGE 

Fanatical Monk Preaching, A 62 

Fifth Mile of the Via Appia, Restored 29 

Forbidden Book, The facing 116 

Fords of Jordan 16 

Interior of Baptistery of Florence 80 

Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives 19 

Jesus Baptized in the Jordan 87 

Jesus Blessing a Child 18 

Judson's Translation of the Scriptures Fin- 
ished 438 

Reach's Chapel 198 

Keach in the Pillory 197 

Mars' Hill 27 

Martyrdom of John Badley 66 

Monumento ad Arnaldo de Brescia, .facing 64 

Moot House at Elstow 188 

Mosaic, Arian Baptistery, Ravenna 98 

Mosaic from Baptistery of St. John, Ravenna 94 , 

Mosaic of the Seventh Century 102 I 

Miinster 105 

Ninth Century Fresco, Basilica of St. Clem- 
ent. — Cyril Immersing a Convert 58 

Old Baptismal Font, St. John on the Pedestal 97 

Pass in the Wilderness of Judea 14 

Paul Preaching 29 

Pool for Ablution — Baba-atel Temple 24 

Pool for Religious Ablution — Golden Tem- 
ple, India 25 

Pool of Hezekiah. 23 

Pool of Siloam 20 

Prison on Bedford Bridge, The 180 

Pulpit, Baptistery, and Table at Pisa 81 

Reputed Spot of Christ's Bnptism 15 

Roger Williams and the Indians 276 

Ruins of Mellifont Baptistery 219 

Solomon's Pools 22 

St. Paul's Bay, from the south 26 

Successful Gospel Preaching 89 

Supposed Immersion of Jesus, A 87 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Symbol of the Church as a Ship 86 

Symbolic Supper, The 85 

Tarsus 26 

Theater at Ephesus — seen by Paul and John 30 

Upper Pool of Gilion 22 



Waldensian Symbols 110 

Waldshut on the Ehine 69 

Whipping of John Florence 66 

Zoar Street Chapel, Southwark 182 

Zwickau 104 



PORTRAITS 



Anderson, Martin B 488 

Angus, Joseph 238 

Armitage, Thomas (steel plate) frontispiece 

Arnold of Brescia 64 

Backus, Isaac 399 

Baldwin, Thomas 472 

Bede, the Venerable 129 

Bennett, Alfred 476 

Bishop, Nathan 471 

Booth, Abraham 218 

Boyce, J. P facing 492 

Broadus, John A 489 

Brown, Hugh Stowell 241 

Brown, Joseph E 393 

Bunyan, John 177 

Carey, William 228 

Castle, John H 554 

Cathcart, William 490 

Colgate, William 533 

Conant, T. J facing 513 

Cone, Spencer H 524 

Cramp, J. M 546 

Curry, Rev. J. L. M 358 

Dodge, E facing 492 

Ellis, Robert 265 

Evans, Christmas 259 

Everts, W. W., Jr facing 268 

Foster, John 239 

Fuller, Andrew 233 

Fuller, Richard 380 

Gano, Stephen 474 

Guild, Reuben A 486 

Hackett, H. B facing 513 

Haldane, James Alexander 224 

Hall, Robert 242 

Harris, Joseph facing 256 

Havelock, Henry 240 

Horr, G. E., Jr facing 268 

Hovey, A facing 492 



Howard, John 214 

Hubmeyer, Balthazar 68 

Hutchinson, Mrs. Lucy 169 

Ivimey, Joseph 236 

James, J. Spinther facing 268 

Jenkins, J facing 256 

Jessey, Henry 175 

Jones, Hon. H. G facing 268 

Jones, Hugh 266 

Judson, Ann Hasseltine 437 

Kendrick, A. C facing 513 

Kiffin, William 170 

Knollys, Hanserd 296 

Leland, John 408 

Maclaren, Alexander 226 

MacVicar, Malcolm 556 

Manning, James 403 

Menno, Simon 107 

Milton, John 189 

Morgan, William 265 

Newman, Albert H 555 

Northrup, G. W facing 492 

Oldcastle, John 67 

Oncken, J. G 448 

Osgood, Howard .... facing 513 

Rippon, John. 210 

Sharp, Daniel 477 

Smith, Samuel F 478 

Spurgeon, Charles H 245 

Stillman, Samuel 400 

Strong, A. H facing 492 

Thomas, Joshua facing 256 

Thomas, M facing 256 

Thomas, Timothy 263 

Vedder, H. C facing 268 

Watkins, Joshua 263 

Weston, H. G facing 492 

Williams, John facing 256 

Williams, William R 479 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

HAVE WE A VISIBLE SUCCESSION OF BAPTIST CHURCHES DOWN 

FROM THE APOSTLES? 

0]ST the western coast of India, near Goa, and also in the Mediterranean, springs 
of fresh water, which do not rise to the surface but are run off by the under- 
current, rush out of the strata at the bottom of the sea. But in the Gulf of Xagu, on 
the southern coast of Cuba, a wonderful fountain of fresh water gurgles up in the 
open sea ; forcing aside its salt waters, it passes off in the surface-current and is lost 
in the ocean. From this spring navigators often draw their supplies of pure water 
in the midst of the briny waste. Here nature lends us a forceful type of the fact 
that there may be a flow of visible succession without purity, and that there may be 
a continuous purity without a flow of visible succession. 

Is an unbroken, visible, and historical succession of independent Gospel Churches 
down from the apostles, essential to the valid existence of Baptist Churches to-day, 
as apostolic in every sense of the word ? This question suggests another, namely, 
Of what value could any lineal succession be, as compared with present adherence to 
apostolic truth ? From these two questions a third arises : Whether true lineage 
from the Apostolic Churches does not rest in present conformity to the apostolic pat- 
tern, even though the local church of to-day be self-organized, from material that 
never came out of any church, provided, that it stands on the apostolicity of the New 
Testament alone. The simple truth is, that the unity of Christ's kingdom on earth 
is not found in its visibility, any more than the unity of the solar system is found in 
that direction, for its largest domain never falls under the inspection of any being 
but God. So, likewise, the unity of Christianity is not found by any visible tracing 
through one set of people. It has been enwrapped in all who have followed purely 
apostolic principles through the ages ; and thus the purity of Baptist life is found 
in the essence of their doctrines and practices by whomsoever enforced. Little 
perception is required to discover the fallacy of a visible apostolical succession in 
the ministry, but visible Church succession is precisely as fallacious, and for exactly 
the same reasons. The Catholic is right in his theory that these two must stand or 
fall together ; hence he assumes, ipso facto, that all who are not in this double suc- 
cession are excluded from the true apostolic line. And many who are not Catholics 
think that if they fail to unroll a continuous succession of regularly organized 
churches, they lose their genealogy by a break in the chain, and so fail to prove 
that they are legitimate Apostolic Churches. Such evidence cannot be traced by 



2 VISIBLE SUCCESSION A SNARE. 

any Church on earth, and would be utterly worthless if it could, because the 
real legitimacy of Christianity must be found in the New Testament, and nowhere 
else. 

The very attempt to trace an unbroken line of persons duly baptized upon their 
personal trust in Christ, or of ministers ordained by lineal descent from the apostles, 
or of churches organized upon these principles, and adhering to the New Testament 
in all things, is in itself an attempt to erect a bulwark of error. Only God can 
make a new creature; and the effort to trace Christian history from regenerate 
man to regenerate man, implies that man can impart some power to keep up a suc- 
cession of individual Christians. Apply the same thought to groups of churches 
running down through sixty generations, and we have precisely the same result. 
The idea is the very life of Catholicism. Our only reliable ground in opposition to 
this system is: That if no trace of conformity to the New Testament could be found 
in any Church since the end of the first century, a Church established to-day upon 
the New Testament life and order, would be as truly a historical Church from 
Christ, as the Church planted by Paul at Ephesus. Robert Robinson has well said : 
' Uninterrupted succession is a specious lure, a snare set by sophistry, into which all 
parties have fallen. And it has happened to spiritual genealogists as it has to others 
who have traced natural descents, both have woven together twigs of every kind to 
fill up remote chasms. The doctrine is necessary only to such Churches as regulate 
their faith and practice by tradition, and for their use it was first invented. . .Protest- 
ants, by the most substantial arguments, have blasted the doctrine of papal succession, 
and yet these very Protestants have undertaken to make proof of an unbroken series 
of persons, of their own sentiments, following one another in due order from the 
apostles to themselves.' l 

Sanctity is the highest title to legitimacy in the kingdom of God, because 
holiness, meekness, and self-consecration to Christ are the soul of real Church life ; 
and without this pedigree, antiquity cannot make Church existence even reverent. 
This sanctity is evinced by the rejection of error and the choice of truth, in all 
matters which the New Testament has enjoined, either by precept or example. In 
things of light import, demanding a robust common sense, the noble and courteous 
spirit of Jesus must be maintained, for personal holiness is the highest test of 
Christianity in all its historical relations. But this matter of visible Church suc- 
cession is organically connected with the idea of Church infallibility, rather than of 
likeness to Christ. The twin doctrines were born of the same parentage, and the 
one implies the other, for a visible succession must be pure in all its parts, that is, 
infallible ; if it is corrupt in some things, no logical showing can make it perfect. 
Truth calls us back to the radical view, that any Church which bears the real 
apostolic stamp is in direct historical descent from the apostles, without relation to 
any other Church past or present. In defense of this position the following consid- 
erations are submitted to all candid minds : 



NO 'MOTHER' CHURCHES. 3 

I. That Christ never established a law of Christian primogeniture by 

WHICH HE ENDOWED LOCAL CHURCHES WITH THE EXCLUSIVE POWER OF MORAL REGEN- 
ERATION, MAKING IT NECESSARY FOR ONE CHURCH TO BE THE MOTHER OF ANOTHER, 
IN REGULAR SUCCESSION, AND WITHOUT WHICH THEY COULD NOT BE LEGITIMATE 

churches. Those who organized the churches in apostolic times went forth simply 
with the lines of doctrine and order in their hands, and formed new churches with- 
out the authority or even the knowledge of other churches. Some of these men 
were neither apostles nor pastors, but private Christians. Men are born of God in 
regeneration and not of the Church. They have' no ancestry in regeneration, much 
less are they the offspring of an organic ancestry. The men who composed the true 
Churches at Antioch and Rome were ' born from above,' making the Gospel and 
not the Church the agency by which men are ' begotten of God.' This Church suc- 
cession figment shifts the primary cpiestion of Christian life from the apostolic 
ground of truth, faith and obedience, to the Romanistic doctrine of persons, and 
renders an historic series of such persons necessary to administer the ordinances and 
impart valid Church life. How does inspiration govern this matter ? ' Whoso 
abideth not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God ; he that abideth in the 
teaching, the same hath both the Father and the Son. If any man cometh to 
you and bringeth not this teaching receive him not.' Pure doctrine, as it is found 
uncorrupted in the word of God, is the only unbroken line of succession which can 
be traced in Christianity. God never confided his truth to the personal succession 
of any body of men ; man was not to be trusted with the custody of this pre- 
cious charge, but the King of the truth has kept the keys of the truth in his own 
hand. The true Church of Christ has ever been that which has stood upon his 
person and work. 

Whitaker, treating of this blunder of the hierarchy, says, ' Faith, therefore, is, 
as it were, the soul of the succession ; which, being wanting, a naked succession of 
persons is a dead body.' 2 Tertullian says, 'If any of the heretics dare to connect 
themselves with the Apostolic Age, that they may seem to be derived from the Apos- 
tles, as existing under them, we may say : Let them, therefore, declare the origin of 
their Churches, let them exhibit the series of their bishops, as coming down by a 
continued succession from the beginning, as to show their first bishop to have been 
some apostle or apostolic man as his predecessor or ordainer, and who continued in 
the same faith with the Apostles. For this is the way in which the Apostolical 
Churches calculate the series of their bishops.' 3 Ambrose takes the same ground, 
thus: 'They have not the inheritance, are not the successors of Peter who have not 
the faith of Peter.' Gregory (Nazianzen), in defending the right of Athanasius, 
to the chair of Alexandria, against his opponent, uses these words : ' This succession 
of piety ought to be esteemed the true succession, for he who maintains the same 
doctrine of faith is partner in the same chair; but he who defends the contrary 
doctrine, ought, though in the chair of St. Mark, to be esteemed an adversary to it 



4 TRUTH THE TEST. 

This man, indeed, may have a nominal succession, but the other has the very thing 
itself, the succession in deed and in truth.' 

Calvin's view is in harmony with this testimony ; he says : ' I deny the suc- 
cession scheme as a thing entirely without foundation. . . . This question of being 
successors of the Apostles must be decided by an examination of the doctrines main- 
tained.' Zanchius gives the same view : ' When personal succession, alone, is boasted 
of, the purity of true Christian doctrine having departed, there is no legitimate min- 
istry, seeing that both the Church and the ministry of the Church are bound not to 
persons, but to the word of God.'' Bradford, the martyr, truly said of the Church, 
that she is 'Not tied to succession, but to the word of God.' And Stillingfleet 
says, with spirit : ' Let succession know its place, and learn to vaile bonnet to the 
Scriptures. The succession so much pleaded by the writers of the primitive Church 
was not a succession of persons in apostolic power, but a succession of apostolic doc- 
trine.' 1 4 On this ground it follows, that those who hold to a tangible succession of 
Baptist Churches down from the Apostolic Age, must prove from the Scriptures 
that something besides holiness and truth is an essential sign of the Church of God. 
The whole pseudo-apostolic scheme, from its foundation, was a creation of the hier- 
archy for the purposes of tyranny. The question of veracity is of vastly more 
moment in Baptist history than that of antiquity. Veracity accepts all truth with- 
out regard to time ; gathering it up, and putting it on record exactly as it has been 
known through the centuries. Historic truth has many parts in harmony with each 
other, but the hard and fast lines of visible succession are those of a mere system and 
not those of true history. The Bible is the deep in which the ocean of Gospel trutli 
lies, and all its streams must harmonize with their source, and not with a dreamy, 
sentimental origin. As it is not a Gospel truth that Christ has lodged the power of 
spiritual procreation in his Churches, so it is not true that all who come not of any 
given line of Church stock are alien and illegitimate. 

II. Our Lord never promised an organic visibility to his Church in perpe- 
tuity, amongst any people or in any age. He endowed his Church with immortal 
life when he said : ' The gates of hell (Hades) shall not prevail against it.' But this 
has nothing to do with the question of a traceable or hidden existence. He gives 
his pledge that his Church shall not perish, and he has secured to her this stability. 
The forces of death have proudly dashed themselves against her a thousand times, 
but despite their rage, she stands firmly built on a 'Rock.' She has been driven 
into the wilderness again and again, as a helpless woman, to find a home as best 
she could. Its fastnesses, wastes, dens and caves, have invited her to their secrecy 
and shelter ; but though her members have been driven like chaff before the wind, 
she has never been destroyed. An array is not overthrown when withdrawn from 
the field, it is retired only to make it indestructible. A grain of wheat enswathed 
and hidden in a pyramid for thousands of years grows as fresh as ever when brought 
back to light and moisture. So Christ signally evinces his watch-care over his 



VISIBILITY NEVER PROMISED. 3 

Church when he brings her into a secret retreat for safety, or as John expresses it. 
into 'her place prepared by God,' that she may be 'nourished for a time,' to come 
forth stronger than ever. Men have often thought the Church dead, first amongst 
this people and then that, when she was more alive than ever for her occasional invis- 
ibility. At such times her organization has been broken, her ordinances suspended. 
her officers slain, her members ground to powder ; but she has come forth again, not 
in a new array of the same persons, but in the revival of old truths amongst a new 
people, to reproduce new and illustrious examples of faithful men. Christianity has 
been one web through which the golden band of truth has been visible from edge 
to edge at times, then a mere thread has been seen, then it has been fully covered by 
the warp. But anon, it has re-appeared as bright as ever, from its long invisibility. 

III. Christ never promised to his churches their absolute preservation 
from error. He promised his Spirit to lead his Apostles into all truth, and kept 
his word faithfully when they wrote and spoke as the Spirit moved them. But 
when he had finished the inspired rule for their guidance, he did not vouchsafe 
to keep them pure, nolens volens. They might mix error and false doctrine with 
his truth, and disgrace themselves by corrupting admixtures ; but the loss and respon- 
sibility were theirs. To have pledged them unmixed purity for all time despite 
their own self-will was to endow them with infallibility, which is precisely the doc- 
trine of Rome, and a contradiction of all reliable history. Even in the first century 
there was great defection from the truth, as the Epistles show. Some of them were 
written, indeed, for the express purposes of correcting error, especially the latter 
writings of Paul and John. From the second to the fourth century, we find a rapid 
departure from inspired truth, with many sects, and no churches exactly after the 
Apostolic order. Some few men, original thinkers who followed no man's teach- 
ings, broke loose from the leadership of all. They went independently to the text 
of Scripture, but stood single-handed, and took with them some error from which 
they could not free themselves, so that they fell below their own ideal ; and the 
original model was not restored for some length of time. Nay, more than this even 
is true. Those organic bodies of men who were drawn together into reformed 
churches, were moved by mixed motives, and in attempting a new order of things, 
few of them came up to the New Testament standard in all respects. And the fail- 
ure to reach that standard in all churches has been so marked as to render it vain 
to look for a visible line of succession, which constitutes the only true Church 
descent from Apostolic times to ours. Some churches have been faithful to one 
divine truth and some to another, but none have embodied all the truth, and few 
individual men now known to us have kept all the requisitions of the Gospel. 

This principle of infallibility and Church succession is the central corruption of 
Rome, and has so polluted her faith that she scarcely holds any truth purely, both 
in the abstract and the concrete. She believes in the proper Deity of Jesus Christ 
and oi the Holy Spirit, — in the Unity and Trinity of the Godhead, — in the authen- 



3 REGENERATED MANHOOD. 

ticity and inspiration of the Scriptures,- — in the doctrines of incarnation and atone- 
ment,— and in eternal glory and retribution. But which of these has she not mod- 
ified and perverted, under the pretense that she is endowed with Catholicity and 
perpetual visibility, as the rightful Church Apostolic, all her defilement to the con- 
trary ? and now she makes her errors her real life. What is true of the hierarchy is 
equally true, in this respect, of most of the bodies which have protested against 
and shaken off her chief heresies. They clung to some truths which she trod 
under foot, but they hugged some of her errors as closely as she hugged them, 
defended them as stoutly, and often persecuted unto death those who differed with 
them, even in minor matters. 

IV. The world is vastly more indebted to a line of individual men who 

HAVE CONTENDED FOR THE TRUTH, EACH BY HIMSELF, THAN TO ANY ORGANIC CHURCHES, 
WHICH CAN BE TRACED BY VISIBLE SUCCESSION FROM THE APOSTLES, UNDER ANY NAME 

whatever. In religion, as in other departments of life, great movements have 
almost always centered in one or two isolated individuals, who have become im- 
mensely influential, by first turning their eyes upon the needs of their own souls, 
without human aid, and generally in opposition to all organizations. External influ- 
ences had little to do in shaping their powers. They were molded above and in 
advance of their age, and created a new life for all about them, often far outside of 
their native sphere. First of all they were obliged to escape from and master them- 
selves, then they led their times into a higher and purer godliness. God wrought 
some grand consummation by them without the aid of any local church, under those 
uniform laws of truth by which Christ's kingdom has ever been governed. These 
powerful examples, scattered through the centuries, show that not organic associa- 
tion, but regenerated manhood makes true history, as we might expect from the fact, 
that the foundation of Gospel obedience is laid in the deep soul-convictions of indi- 
vidual men. 

The most marked discoveries and advancements of history have been made, not 
on the plans of concerted bodies, but by individual minds. Galileo seized the idea 
of the telescope from a casual glance at a boy holding a tube to his eye ; and New- 
ton found the law that binds the universe in a falling apple. So, the few who have 
been impregnated with holy purposes, saturated through and through with fidelity 
to Christ, have arisen in imperial strength to vindicate his truth ; these are the 
Alpine peaks that mark the centuries. Their love to Christ held their action respon- 
sible to him, and made its final results safe. Religious systems arose out of their per- 
sonal exertions, but when did a religious system create a new life, after the first 
century ? Baptists are greater debtors to such a train of men than to any train of 
churches that can be named. This great law of individuality has not escaped the 
notice of skeptics. Matthew Arnold says, in his Introduction to Literature and 
Dogma : ' Jesus Christ, as he appears in the Gospels, and for the very reason that 
he is manifestly above the heads of his reporters there, is, in the jargon of modern 



JESUS STOOD ALONE. 7 

philosophy, an absolute ; we cannot explain him, cannot get behind him, and above 
him, cannot command him. He is, therefore, the perfection of our ideal, and it is 
as an ideal that the divine has its best worth and reality. The unerring and con- 
summate felicity of Jesus, his prepossessingness, his grace and truth, are moreover at 
the same time the law for right performance on all great men's lines of endeavor, 
although the Bible deals with the line of conduct only.' Goethe speaks of the 
person of Christ in the same strain : ' The life of that divine man, whom you allude 
to, stands in no connection with the general history of the world in his time. It 
was a private life ; his teaching was for individuals. What has publicly befallen 
vast masses of people, and the minor parts which compose them, belongs to the 
general history of the world, the religion we have named the first. "What inwardly 
befalls individuals, belongs to the second religion, the philosophical : such a religion 
was it that Christ taught and practiced so long as he went about on earth.' 

This tribute to Christ from such sources may be applied largely to those who 
have pre-eminently imbibed his spirit, were made what they were by closely follow- 
ing him, and who lived singly to his glory. The distinctive religious life which they 
introduced into their times was in advance of their day, as his life was in advance 
of his day. Their progress was slow, like his, because they set up a high mark 
and suffered for it ; their patience and growth drew men to their side, and when 
they retired, perhaps as martyrs, their aim was reached by the world, so that that 
which others first scoiited became necessary at last to their bliss. Some few 
such men drew the historic boundary lines, as a few headlands mark the entire 
sweep of a dim sea-coast. The truths which they insisted upon were changeless, 
though they were neglected under the reign of ignorance, or the sway of violence. 
But the king-men were not to blame for the dwartishness of others. They gave 
unity to the centuries by keeping the struggle alive for the purity of eternal 
principles, the idea for which they suffered has interpreted its priceless value by 
their sufferings. Because the masses of the people were ignorant they were fero- 
cious, for in the Middle Ages men did not seek high principle in troops ; as great 
souls only can prefer a pure religion to one that is corrupt, one that is simple to 
one that is complicated, one from heaven and unstamped by earthly and grotesque 
intermixtures. The natural creed of the masses lodges in ceremony, mummery 
and external sanctity, and simple purity is too great to enlist admiration, when men 
prefer sophistication. Of course, where such religion is preferred there can be few 
men of gigantic stature. 

Then, it often happens that men of high excellence rise in character far above 
their creed, for in historic religion creed and character do not always harmonize. 
When a few men rise above the character of a whole people they rise above the 
level of their age, and in that case they must pay a large price in suffering for the 
purpose of blessing their race, a price that but few are able to pay. A great mind 
of our day avows, ' That in the whole period from the sixth to the tenth century, 



8 ' ANTIQUITY IN TRUTH. 

there were not in all Europe more than three or four men who dared to think for 
themselves ; ' and even they were not classed with the creators of their age. They 
were neither rulers nor statesmen, but quiet and unobserved suggesters, who discov- 
ered abuses and pointed out remedies which future times were proud to apply. 
Chiefly through this order of mind we are to trace the record of Baptist sentiments, 
but the name ' Baptist ' must not mislead us to enlist into our ranks men who would 
be unworthy of that name to-day, simply because they held some things in common 
with ourselves. Kather, we must embrace only those who cherished in full, the con- 
ception which both the New Testament Baptists and those of the nineteenth century 
set forth as underlying the entire kingdom of Christ. It is in the embodiment of 
these principles, whether in individuals or churches, that we are to look for true 
Baptist history. Because they are imbedded in the Bible we bow to their holy 
teachings, the antiquity of principles being quite another thing from the antiquity 
of organizations. As doctrines and practices originated in after times are late and 
new, we must reverence that antiquity alone which God uttered in the beginning. 
A system running through ages is an empty boast unless it reproduces the vital, 
spiritual copy of the first age. 

For seventy years the Jews lost the line of the Passover, when Jerusalem lay 
in heaps and Israel was enslaved in Babylon, but when Nehemiah brought them back 
and restored the feast, the seventy missing links of festivity came with them. Two 
generations of their people had died and certain of their tribes were never heard of 
again, yet their true history as Jews was not broken nor the significancy of the Pass- 
over impaired, ' although they had not done it of a long time in such sort as it is 
written.' The moment that the Temple was rebuilt, its doors opened, and its lamps 
relit, the old authority of the institution revived. No Jewish household now living 
can trace its descent to any given tribe which existed at the fall of Jerusalem, A. D. 
70. All have been so scattered and intermixed amongst themselves and the Gen- 
tiles, that tribal lines are entirely obliterated ; yet none will deny that they are the 
direct descendants of Abraham. The principles above set forth are not those 
which have been generally adopted in Baptist history. But the writer is persuaded 
that they are the only true channel through which it can be traced, and by which 
Baptists can be made a unit with Apostolic Churches, while visible descent and the 
unbroken succession of churches are not and cannot be a proper test in the matter. 
We enjoy the right of self-government in the United States by a regular descent of 
democracy from the Roman Republic, but it is impossible to trace its course by a line 
of democracies to which our own is the successor. But the two, separated so widely 
in point of time, are essentially the same in their liberties. Individuals have asserted 
the rights of man in every country, and bands have struggled to embody them in 
every government, but who will say that these have not been the true patriots of 
the world, because a perpetual and visible line of organized republics has not come 
down to us, side by side with a similar line of despotic governments ? 



FIRST PURE. 9 

Historical truth applies the same processes to the several streams of natural 
science. Certain families and tribes are found in vegetable and animal life ; that is 
to say, a given type multiplies itself into groups, sequence being our guide ; yet no 
scientist discards faith in the existence of a type, because he cannot trace its visible 
sequence, while again and again he finds its outward course strangely resumed. 
So we speak of a people known as ' Baptists,' who have been substantially 
of one order of religions faith and practice, and have been made so by one order of 
religious principle. If crushed at one time, or entirely driven out of sight, others 
bearing the same Apostolic stamp and force have come forth to till their places, under 
other names. A sunbeam is a sunbeam, no matter upon what putrescence it may fall, 
or with what pollution it may mingle ; and by a ray of this character we thread our 
way from Christ down in ecclesiastical life. But the pretense that any one com- 
munion now on earth can trace its way down from the Apostles, in one line of 
fidelity and purity to New Testament teachings, is to contradict all reliable history. 
Dr. Abel Stevens says : ' Obscure communities, as the Cathari of the Novatians, the 
Paulicians, the Albigenses, and the Waldenses, maintained the ancient faith in com- 
parative purity from the beginning of the fourth century down to the Reformation.' 
These and other sects held one or more distinctive Baptist principles, but none of 
them were thorough Baptists, through and through. A Baptist church is a con- 
gregation, and not a denomination of congregations, and find it in what nook we 
may, if ib can trace its doctrines to the Apostles it is an Apostolic Church. ' A 
church,' says Dr. Bipley, ' that came into existence yesterday, in strict conformity to 
the New Testament principles of membership, far away from any long-existing 
church or company of churches, and therefore unable to trace an outward lineal 
descent, is a true Church of Christ. . . . While a church so-called, not standing on 
the Apostolic principles of faith and practice, and yet able to look back through a 
long line up to time immemorial, may have never belonged to that body of which 
Christ is the Head.' 

The reader of religious history must be as honest as its writer, for the one is as 
much exposed to bias as the other. Yet, the exact facts which are found by the 
truthful historian are often condemned unweighed, because they are unpalatable ; 
and true chronicles are often buried under the abuse which they heap upon their 
subject. For some reason much of this unfairness crops out, with many, whenever 
the truths of the New Testament are under consideration. Hence a man only 
honors himself and the vital teachings of the Holy Spirit when he separates himself 
from all that is superficial in his own methods of examination. Above all people, 
Baptists should be content to separate their history from all questionable material, 
and to write and read it in the form in which facts have cast it, its complete touch- 
stone being conformity to the Gospel. Those only have been Baptists who have 
conformed to this rule, from age to age, without addition or subtraction. Error 
must eternally remain error, and no antiquity can sanctify it into truth. For all the 



lO NO TRADITION. 

ends of truth merely venerable custom is weak ; yet, if a supreme love of truth does 
not force it back, it will dominate the mind through the senses, which are captivated 
by the hoary. As the dykes of Holland repel the approaches of the sea, so Baptists 
can only reserve the fairest provinces of truth by resisting ancient custom, simply 
because it is ancient. Ecclesiastical custom is as mutable as its maker, and yet,_ 
when an old practice conflicts with the New Testament, many make that practice 
the true interpretation of God's word without questioning its authority. Although 
not one jot has been added to the truth since the death- of the Apostle John, the bare 
antiquity of a tradition enshrines it in the faith of many, especially if it came down 
from one of the so-called ' Fathers..' A late able scholar of Dr. Wayland's illustrated 
the feeling of many on this subject. He asked whether, if the doctor had lived near 
the time of Paul, his word would not have been weightier than that of other men. 
The great tutor replied, 'Yes, provided Paul had said in his writings, "I leave 
Francis Wayland my interpreter." ' And if not, how could he have interpreted an 
apostle better than any one else, without special inspiration from God ? The noblest 
minds are often crippled by this straining after uninspired antiquity, under the 
notion that it must touch the divine, without reaching after Christ's infallible ideal, 
when it stands openly before their eyes. 

Baptist historians have always written against great odds. Commonly those 
who rejected our principles in past ages were filled with bitterness, and destroyed 
the best sources of exact data in the shape of treatise, narrative and record. The 
hated party was weak, and the dominant sought its destruction. Often these help- 
less victims of tyranny were obliged to destroy their own documents, lest discovery 
should overwhelm them in calamity. We shall see also that while many of the old 
sects were more or less imbued with Baptist principles, each had its own class of 
deductions, convictions and practices. In consequence, what was a cherished faith 
with one was held in contempt by another, and these states of mind became a part 
of the men themselves. Their different stages of faith were different stages of con- 
sciousness ; and it came to pass, that to oppose each other fiercely was to attain high 
fidelity. In the dreary weakness of human nature each man held his own sect 
virtuous and the others vicious, all the time forgetting that as relative bodies they 
modified each other, and were largely responsible for each other's conduct. Then, 
as the Baptists had control of no national government, they could not preserve their 
records as did others. They managed no legislation or system of civil jurisprudence, 
and could keep no archives, having no legal officers whose special business it was to 
8tore up and keep facts. Necessarily, therefore, what few records they have left 
are fragmentary, without due continuity of register, and almost barren of vital 
events. The hand which carried the sword to smite this people, carried also the 
torch to burn up their books, and their authors were reduced to ashes by the flames of 
their own literature. The material for building up their chronicles is both crude 
and scanty. The governing life of a people, and not circumstances alone, gives 



NEW TESTAMENT SUCCESSION. 11 

value to their claim, and so we are thrown back on principle and hard general- 
ization. 

If Baptist history be peculiar, it is because Baptists have been a peculiar people. 
Their enemies have always accounted them as ' heretics,' whose prime value was to 
keep a cold world warm by their use as fuel for the stake. Men have never been 
willing to understand them, because they never would accept them on their own 
showing, but have insisted on measuring them by other standards than their own. 
With a great price they obtained their freedom, and their radical individualism 
made them appear to other men as disturbing and even violent. In turn, almost 
every man's hand has been against them, and as a people of but one book, they have 
taken a fixed and sturdy character, which has made them look as if their hand was 
against every man. What Burke said of Americans, in another line, is true of them 
in their devotion to the Bible, namely : ' In no country, perhaps, in the world, is the 
law so general a study.' 

We see, then, that Robinson, Crosby, Irving, Orchard, Jones, Backus, Benedict, 
Cramp, and other Baptist historians, have written under every possible disadvantage. 
Still, their work shows an instinctive love of the truth for the truth's sake, worthy 
of such veterans. Their sprituality is elevated, their piety without guile, their 
devotion to the Gospel ardent, and their historical acumen quite ecpial to that of 
other Church historians. In the main, their leading facts and findings have not been 
proven untrustworthy, and no one has attempted to show that their general con- 
clusions are untenable. Possibly, their chief mistake has lodged in the attempt to 
find the stray and casual links of a certain order of churches which may, by accom- 
modation, be called Baptist. The design of this work will be, to follow certain 
truths through the ages, on that radical Protestant principle which professes to 
discard the Romish claim of catholicity and succession, and so to follow certain 
truths down to their chief conservators of this time, the Baptists. By this 
method we can best understand their battles with error and power, their defeats 
and victories. In general history no writer will be content to seek a succession of 
kings and courts, of warriors and bloody fields, but he will find truth in the social 
and civil life of a people, in the march of constitutional freedom, and the phenomena 
of human elevation. 

The best service that can be rendered to the Baptists is, to trace the noiseless 
energy and native immortality of the doctrines which they hold, after all their con- 
flicts, to the glory of Christ, for it is exactly here that we see their excellency as a 
people. If it can be shown that their churches are the most like the Apostolic that 
now exist, and that the elements which make them so have passed successfully 
through the long struggle, succession from the times of their blessed Lord gives 
them the noblest history that any people can crave. To procure a servile imita- 
tion of merely primitive things has never been the mission of Baptists. Their 
work has been to promote the living reproduction of New Testament Christians, 



12 CHRIST OUR LIFE. 

and so to make the Christlike old, the ever delightfully new. Their perpetually 
fresh appeal to the Scriptures as the only warrant for their existence at all must not 
be cut off, in a foolish attempt to turn the weapons of the hierarchy against itself. 
The sword of the Spirit must still be their only arm of service, offensive and 
defensive. An appeal to false credentials now would not only cut them off from 
their old roll of honor, but it would sever them from the use of all that now 
remains undiscovered and unapplied in the word of God. The distinctive attribute 
in the kingdom of Christ is life ; not an historic life, but a life supernatural, flow- 
ing eternally from Christ alone by his living truth. 

Such existence does not claim the right of long possession in this soil or that, or 
through this or that course of time ; nor is this the best title by which Baptists can 
prove their heirship to their fair inheritance. So far from their right to live inher- 
ing in organic ancestry by ancient descent, their right to be, in the nineteenth cent- 
ury, comes by their oneness with the truth given by Christ in the first century. 
Their present possession of that truth, is the testimony to their unity with an endless 
life, is their only authority for existence at any time, with or without human records, 
and shuts out all other considerations. The life of all Gospel churches must center 
in the truth which has come down unscathed from Jesus Clmst ; we must find it 
here or nowhere, and there can be no course, extreme or via media, which applies 
the true test of Church life but this. A human figment may serve the ends of 
Catholicism, but as Baptists are not Romanists, only Christ and Apostolicity as they 
are found in the Divine Writings can suffice for them. The spirit and outcome of 
these in their normal form afford the staple for genuine Baptist History. 



NEW TESTAMENT PERIOD. 



CHAPTER I. 



f ™ 



JOHN, JESUS AND THE APOSTLES. 

AN eminent writer says of John the Baptist that ' he Avas the beginning of a 
new race,' but a greater than he fixes the proper place of John in history when 
he declares, that amongst those ' born of women, there has not arisen a greater than 
John.' His father was a Jewish priest and his mother a descendant of Aaron. His 
birth was first predicted by the prophet Malachi, and again, after nearly 400 years, 
by the angel Gabriel. He was born in the Levitical city of Juttah, six miles south 
of Hebron, and seventeen south of Jerusalem. The record of his nativity, as given 
by Luke, throws a perfect charm 
about his character as the first 
Baptist. He is the only man in 
Scripture, except his Lord, of 
whom no act of sin is on record, 
for he was 'filled with the Holy 
Spirit, even from his mother's 
womb.' The Gospel account of 
his life and character is as won- 
derful as his mission. His life in 
the desert of Judea and his 
preaching show that he was armed 
with a fidelity to God, which 
nothing could daunt. He frowned 
upon all cold-heartedness in the service of God, and upon all brutal passion, de- 
manding repentance and a new life. His preaching flew through the land like a 
thunderbolt, and multitudes flocked to the Jordan to be baptized into the new faith, 
which he preached, touching the ' Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the 
world.' The Spirit of God gave power to his proclamation, men's consciences were 
aroused, their hearts broken, a new principle of holy living implanted the kingdom 
of God in their hearts, and as new creatures they were baptized on their faith ' in 
one to come.' 




ABRAHAM'S POOL AT HEBROX. 



14 



BAPTISM OF JESUS. 




PASS IN THE WILDERNESS OP JCDEA. 



In due time, Jesus the Son of God took his journey from Galilee to the river 
Jordan, to be immersed of John, baptism being the door by which he was to enter 
Mss^g ^^^^ ,,^;^ on his work of saving medi- 

ation. Although they were 
K'lfe cousms after the flesh on their 
||| mother's side, yet, down to 
that time John ' knew him 
not,' still he said to Jesus : 
' I have need to be baptized 
of thee,' as if he knew him 
well. In his baptism John 
discovered his messiahship, 
for Jehovah, who had sent 
him to baptize, said to 
him: 'Upon whom thou 
shalt see the Spirit descending, 
and abiding on him, the same 
is he who baptizes in the 
Holy Spirit.' ' And having 
been baptized, Jesus went up immediately from the water ; and lo, the heavens were 
opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending, as a dove, and coming 
upon him. And lo, a voice out of heaven, saying: This is my beloved Son, in 
whom I am well pleased.' 'And. John bore witness, saying : I have seen the Spirit 
descending as a dove out of heaven, and it abode upon him.' 

As John and Jesus had lived apart till that time, one in the north and the 
other in the south of the land, John explains the reason of their meeting at the 
Jordan thus : 'That he might be made manifest to Israel, for this I came baptizing 
in water.' The servant and his Master had been waiting for each other, so that 
baptism was the channel through which God could give his attestation to the messi- 
anic dignity of his Son. So, when the great Baptist bowed the immaculate soul and 
body of Jesus beneath the parting wave of Jordan, all the useless ceremonies of the 
past sank like lead into the opening grave, and no place has since been found for 
them. 

What was the act which John performed which is here called baptism ? From 
early times the Jews used various lustrations, but they were purely ceremonial and 
were never used as a rite by which others were inducted into their faith. Yon 
Ptohden says : ' The washings enjoined by the law had for their object purification 
from ceremonial defilement ; but the baptism of John did not. The one rite was per- 
formed by the candidates themselves upon their own persons ; the other was admin- 
istered to its recipient by the Baptist himself, or by one of his disciples properly 
authorized. The former was repeated upon every occasion of renewed defilement ; 




^^<^t^0 




BAPTISM OF JESUS. 



THE S A CUED RIVER. 



15 



the latter was performed upon the candidate once for all. The two ceremonies, 
therefore, were essentially different in their nature and object.' Male converts from 
heathenism were admitted into Judaism by circumcision ; females, by a free-will 
offering; but after the time of our Lord the Jews added baptism for both sexes 
admitted into their religion. Possibly, Jewish proselyte baptism, in imitation of 
the Christian rite, was incorporated into Judaism soon after the destruction of Jeru- 
salem, A. D. 70, when the Jews were scattered everywhere. But the first witness in 
its favor is found in the Commentary of the Talmud, which was composed in the 
fifth century after Christ, and is at the best simply a Jewish tradition. Maimonides 
thus describes the process: 'Every person baptized (or dipped, whether he were 
washed from pollution, or baptized into proselytism) must dip his whole body, now 
stripped and made naked, at one dipping. And wheresoever in the law washing 
of the whole body or garments is mentioned it means nothing else than the washing 
of the whole body. For if any wash himself all over except the very tip of his 
little finger he is still in his un cleanness.' The very title given to John, the Baptist, 
proves that it was he who introduced this rite ; for John was his proper name, while 
the term, Baptist, is a title of office, to indicate that he was pre-eminently known as 
the first administrator of the religious rite called baptism. According to Liddell and 
Scott, the Baptist was ' one that dips ; ' or, Donegan, ' one who immerses or sub- 
merges.' Dean Stanley says : ' On philological grounds it is quite correct to trans- 
late John the Baptist, by John t lie Immerscr.' 

Reckless speakers and writers often rush into random statements touching the 
great river of Palestine, the Jordan even asserting that its depth would not allow 
of immersion. All such reckless- 
ness is rebuked by the topograph- 
ical exploration of Lieutenant 
Lynch, of the United States Xavy, 
and by Pocockethe explorer, who 
estimates that daily the Jordan 
empties 0,000,000 tons of water 
into the Dead Sea. Dr. Philip 
Schaff, in his 'Through Bible 
Lands,' writes thus: 'At the 
bathing place of the Pilgrims, the 
traditional site of Christ's bap- 
tism, the river is 80 feet broad 
and 9 feet deep. . . . After 
the salt bath in the lake of death 
it was like a bath of regeneration. 
I immersed myself ten times, and felt so comfortable that I almost imagined I was 

miraculously delivered from rheumatism. I have plunged into many a river and 
3 




EEPUTED SPOT OF CHRIST'S BAPTISM. 



16 



VALIDITY OF BAPTISM BY JOHN. 



many a lake, and into the waters of the ocean, but of all the baths, that in the 
Jordan will linger longest in my memory.' In harmony with these facts Dean 
Alford says, on Matt, iii, 6 : ' The baptism was administered in the day time, by 
immersion of the whole person.' 

The highest eulogy that ever was pronounced by human lips was that of Jesus 
on John, when he said that ' no man born of woman was greater than he ' and 

that he was 
'more than a 
prophet' He 
also called him 
the 'Elijah who 
was to come,' a 
• witness to the 
truth,' 'a burn- 
ing and a shin- 
ing light.' The 
Evangelist gives 
us the mind of 
Jesus in this 
matter when he says : ' There was a man sent from God, 
whose name was John. The same came for witness, to 
bear witness of the light, that through him all might be- 
lieve.' John the Baptist was so directly from God, and 
Jesus so recognized the authority of the Father, that he 
begged baptism at John's hands. With these facts staring 
them in the face men have raised a dispute about words, and have cast discredit 
upon Christ's own baj)tism, as if it had no binding force upon his Churches. As if 
it were defective in some way or other, they deny that the baptism which John ad- 
ministered to him was Christian baptism. That is to say, they would have us believe 
that John stood in a nondescript dispensation of his own when he baptized Jesus, while 
Jesus stood in still another dispensation when he received baptism from John. Cer- 
tainly John's ministry was not under the economy of Moses, for Jesus himself says 
that : ' The law was until John,' but by him the ' good news of the kingdom is preached, 
and every man passes into it ;' that is, into the same kingdom that Jesus jireached and 
of which he was King. Christ was never immersed in water but once, and yet men 
will be absurd enough to say that his baptism was not in the Christian dispensation 
simply because he was baptized before his ascension to heaven. For the same reason 
the Lord's Supper must be out of the Christian dispensation, as its first celebration 
came on the night before his death. The simple fact is that both John and Jesus 
preached the same ' kingdom of heaven ' at the same time, and to the same people, 
either in the Christian age or out of it, certainly. Therefore, if John's preaching 







BAPTIST PRINCIPLES. 17 

and baptism were neither Mosaic nor Christian, those of Jesus could not be. They 
stand or fall together. Bengel forcibly groups the two in one when, quoting the 
words of Mark, he says : ' " The beginning of the Gospel " is in the Baptist, the 
Gospel in the whole book.' John was not a functionary of the old Age, but he was 
a ' voice,' strong, clear, living, and Jesus was the word that he spoke, saying : ' Be- 
hold the Lamb of God. Repent, and receive the king.' And when they did this and 
believed this, on their faith he immersed their bodies in the Jordan. 

Herod had taken the wife of his half-brother Philip to be his own wife after 
she had abandoned her own husband. As God's messenger John thundered in the 
ears of Herod, ' It is not lawful for thee to have her.' She was angry Avith the 
faithful Baptist, and like a ferocious animal hounded him as her prey. The law of 
the Jews had thrown a firm rampart around the sanctity of marriage, a holiness 
which the whole Ilerodian family had set at nought, in one way or another. The 
Baptist brought Herod up to the scrutiny of the Bible standard. His terrible- 
appeals to the scriptural law, Lev. xviii, 16, were so keen that they went like a barb 
to the haughty monarch's heart. The king had shocked the public feeling by the 
scandal, which openly defied the supremacy of God's law, and he writhed when 
John laid his finger on the ulcer. The result was the murder of John in cold 
blood. The sword fell upon his neck, his headless trunk was left on the floor of 
his dismal dungeon, his head was brought to the palace on a dish, and the name of 
John began the long roll of Baptist martyrs. Next to his Master, this great har- 
binger, theologian, and confessor was the typical Christian Baptist of all ages. 
It is worse than a blunder, it is a positive wrong inflicted on Jesus, to place him on 
the banks of the Jordan, with his face toward Sinai and Egypt, as a personification 
of Judaism. His face Avas turned toward Nazareth, Tabor, Calvary, and Olivet, 
as the embodiment of a Gospel ministry. Eye to eye, Jesus and John looked for- 
ward into New Testament times. In the words of Frederick Robertson : ' John? 
laid the foundations of a temple and others built upon it. He laid it in a struggle, 
in martyrdom. It was covered up with the rough masonry below ground, but 
when we look around on the vast Christian Church we are looking at the super- 
structure of John's toil.' 

The principles and practices imposed by our Lord Jesus Christ, and which were 
observed and copied by the Apostolic Churches, are those which distinguish the Bap- 
tists of to-day. He instituted the great instrumentality of preaching the Gospel to 
every creature. He proclaimed himself as the King of the Truth, but yet he held 
human governments as wholesome and set up no earthly kingdom of his own. On 
the other hand, in his own spiritual realm he reserved to himself the selection of 
its subjects, the appointing of its officers, and the enactment and enforcement of its 
laws, because he needed not the assistance of others. His servants were neither to 
fight for political supremacy nor ask such powers to fight for them. His kingdom 
was to conquer by choice and not by force, and its converts were to be gathered out 



18 



THE NEW BIRTH. 



of all bloods and nations, in one harmonious whole, held together by love as broad 
and deep as human nature itself. He taught that legal coercion is powerless to 
command the assent of a soul to doctrine, or the obedience of life to law. He is, 
therefore, the King of souls, and propagates his truth through the intellect, the 
affections, the conscience. Inasmuch as his conquests are moral and not physical, he 
makes his palace and sets up his throne in the believing soul. Every civil penalty, 
therefore, in the form of religious j>ersecution is at variance with the principles of 
his government, as they assume prerogatives which belong to him and indicate arro- 
'gant inclination on the part of secular authority. He founded his kingdom on 
character, on sanctified manhood, and not on political organization, and expressed 
his great originality as a King in laying down the solid foundation : ' Whom the Son 
-makes free, they are free indeed.' 

Men were to be converted, ' born again,' ' born from above,' transformed in 
their whole spiritual being, in order to become the subjects of his kingdom. Hence, 
he made preaching, repentance, faith, and baptism of perpetual obligation, and all the 
nations were to be thus ' discipled,' each person, one by one. As to irresponsible 
children who cannot understand preaching, who cannot exercise repentance, faith, 
-and obedience, his ample love tasted death on their behalf, enwrapping them in a 
free redemption, without conditions of any sort. As they 
could bear no yoke he put none upon their necks. Then- 
parents coveted his 'blessing' for their children. They knew 
nothing of infant baptism, but they would that he should 
lay his hands upon them as the patriarch Jacob blessed the 
sons of Joseph. And, as he 'blessed' his grandsons without 
baptizing them, so these infants, brought to Christ unbap- 
tized, were taken away unbaptized, for Jesus personally ' bap- 
tized none.' But they were not for that reason left unblessed. 
He took them in his arms and ' prayed for them,' and when he 
had given them his benediction without baptizing them he said : 
' Of such is the kingdom of heaven.' It is, therefore, simply 
heathenish to suppose that a child dying without submission to a rite, which the 
Lamb of God never imposed upon the unconscious one, perishes. A pagan might 
glory in such a horrible teaching, but a simplediearted follower of Christ ought to 
fly with burning shame from the very thought, for it must be more revolting to 
God than it can be to man. 

Chronologists date our Lord's ascension from A. D. 29 to 36, but the year 33 
may be taken as the most satisfactory. Before his departure he had endowed his 
Church with power to increase its constituency, to establish new assemblies, and to 
extend its influence to the ends of the earth. Ten days after his enthronement at 
God's right hand he sent the Holy Spirit to administer the affairs of his Church, to 
vindicate his claims against his foes, and to compensate for his own absence. The 




JESUS BLESSING A CHILD. 
(From the Catacombs.) 



PENTECOSTAL POWER. 



19 



first work of the Spirit was to attest liis own mission by miraculous evidences. At 
once, therefore, the Spirit honored himself and ' glorified ' Christ by qualifying the 
Apostles to preach the Gospel to all the nations of the world. "While Peter was 
preaching at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, which feast celebrated the ingather- 
ing of the wheat-harvest, an infinite energy fell upon the preacher and his brethren, 




JERUSALEM FROM THE MOUXT OF OLIVES. 



which subdued every facility and power of their being. Their imagination, under- 
standing, conscience, memory, will, and affections were all submerged in the Holy 
Spirit as pearls are buried in the sea. As Ellicott expresses it : ' Baptism with the 
Holy Spirit would imply that the souls thus baptized would he plunged, as it were, 
in that creative and informing Spirit, which was the source of holiness and life and 
wisdom.' There sat upon the heads of these elder sons of Zion a coronation flame, 
pointed, like the human tongue, but divided also and forked, not only to indicate 
vitality and fluency, but as a fitting emblem of the various languages which they 
should speak, as if they were natives of every country, instead of being fishermen 
from an inland lake. This flaming appearance was not fire, as loose interpretation 
says, but it was ' like as of fire ; ' and its appearance was attended by a loud sound, 
not of wind, but ''like a rushing, mighty wind,' indicating that the Spirit kept pace 



20 



BELIEVERS IMMERSED. 



with the storm which was sweeping away every linguistic obstruction to the spread 
of the Gospel. They began to speak in tongues which they had not studied, for the 
Spirit gave them utterance, and every man heard the Gospel preached in his 
mother-tongue, although the preacher had not been educated in that language. 
Men from all nations under heaven heard and were amazed that those who could 
only speak in the Galilean dialect could address men grammatically in all these lan- 
guages. Thus the Spirit vindicated Christ and his chosen fishermen, who so han- 
dled the keys of the kingdom that 3,000 were added to the body of believers. 




POOL OF SILOAM. 



That number were immersed that day as converts to Christ. Dean Plumptre 
says on that subject : ' The largeness of the number has been urged as rendering it 
probable that the baptism was by affusion, not immersion. On the other [hand] (1) 
immersion had clearly been practiced by John, and was involved in the original 
meaning of the word, and it is not likely that the rite should have been curtailed of 
its full proportions at the very outset ; (2) the symbolic meaning of the act required 
immersion in order that it might be clearly manifested, and Rom. vi, 4, and 1 Pet. 
iii. 21, seem almost of necessity to imply the more complete mode. The pools of 
IJethesda and Siloam (see John v, 7 ; ix, 7), or the so-called Fountain of the Virgin, 
near the temple inclosure, or the bathing-places within the Tower of Anthony (Jos., 
* Wars,' v. 5, § 8), may well have helped to make the process easy.' 



IMMERSION ONIY IS BAPTISM. 21 

Scholarly and candid minds can scarcely doubt that the only sense of the Greek 
word baptize is to clip, immerse, bury. John, as well as all other sacred speakers, 
used words in their commonly accepted sense, and this is no less true in his use of 
this word than of others. Happily its sense is easily fond. That great philologist, Dr. 
Conant, gives a complete monograph of the root word, in his ' Baptizein,' taken from 
the best Greek authors, running from B. C. 500 to the eleventh century A. D.; and, 
in 168 examples from the Greek literature, covers both the literal or physical, and 
the tropical or figurative, meaning of the word. The entire scope of these cases shows 
that its ground meaning is to plunge, to submerge, to dip, to whelm, to immerse. 
A few examples taken from objects already in water clearly illustrate this fact. 

Pindar, born B. C. 522, in likening himself to a cork floating on the top of 
a net, says : ' "When the rest of the tackle is toiling deep in the sea, I, as a cork 
above the net, am unbaptized (undipped) in the brine.' Aristotle, born B. C. 382, 
says that the Phenician colonists of Gadiva, ' came to certain desert places full of 
rushes and sea-weed ; which, when it is ebb-tide, are not baptized (overflowed), but 
when it is flood-tide are overflowed,' baptized. Polybius, born B. C. 205, tells us of 
the sea-battle between Philip and Attalus, speaks of one vessel as ' pierced and 
baptized (submerged) by a hostile ship.' And, in his account of the naval fight 
between the Romans and Carthaginians, the same writer shows that the latter were 
more skillful, and by continued assaults baptized (sunk) many of the Poman ships. 
Strabo, bornB. C. 60, in describing Alexander's army marching on a narrow, flooded 
beach of the Pamphilian Sea, says that they marched the whole day in water, 
' baptized (immersed) as far as to the waist.' Diodorus, B. C. 60-30, in describing 
the defeat of the Carthaginian army at the river Crimissus, says many of them 
were i baptized'' (submerged) and destroyed, because the stream was swollen, and the 
current rushed down upon them. 

These examples bring us down to John's day, and fully justify Deylingius, in 
saying of him: 'He received the name ton Baptiston from the office of solemn 
ablution and immersion, in which he officiated by a divine command. For the word 
baptizesthai, in the usage of Greek authors, signifies immersion and demersion.' 
Josephus, born A. D. 37, uses the word in this sense. He describes the companions 
of Aristobulus, who murdered him by drowning in a swimming bath, as pressing 
him down and ''baptizing'' (immersing) him until he was suffocated. Again, in writ- 
ing of his own shipwreck, he says : ' Our vessel having been " baptized " (sunk) 
in the midst of the Adriatic, being about 600 in number, we swam through the 
Avhole night.' Lucian, born about A. D. 135, in a satire on the lore of the marvel- 
ous, tells of men running on the sea, as if they had cork feet, saying : ' We 
wondered, therefore, when we saw them not " baptized " (immersed) but standing 
above the waves, and traveling on without fear.' These citations cover between six 
and seven hundred years, including the New Testament age, and express only the act 
of immersion. Well, therefore, may Calvin sum up the whole evidence, which this 



22 OPINIONS OF SCHOLARS. 

word submits, by saying: 'Baptism was administered by Jolm and Christ by the 
submersion of the whole body.' 

Dr. Dollinger says that this baptism was an 'immersion of the whole person, 
which is the only meaning of the New Testament word ; a mere pouring or sprink- 
ling was never thought of.' All ancient writers on Jerusalem set forth its immense 
storage of water for public use, and especially the great number of its public baths. 
We never read that it suffered for water in all its calamities of famine and siege ; 
indeed, its water springs had much to do with the selection of its location as the 

site for a city. At the 
three annual feasts the 
Jewish capital was vis- 
ited by hundreds of thou- 
sands of pilgrims, so 
that their religious wash- 
ings, purifications, and 
ablutions rendered great 
water-wealth necessary, 
in the shape of wells, 
reservoirs, and pools, for 
public uses. Josephus 
says that at the Passover 
alone two hundred thousand head of beasts were sacrificed, all of them being watered 
and washed for offering. He also says that the whole sect of the Essenes, which 
was numerous, immersed themselves daily. Herod had repaired all the water-works 




UPPER POOL OF G1HON. 




SOLOMON'S POOLS. 



of Jerusalem, and in our Lord's time they were in full operation. Tomson says 
that ' no other city in this part of the world ' had such profuse supplies of water. 
It is simply absurd to pretend that while a whole nation could find water enough to 
keep three such large feasts a year, 3,000 converts to Christ could find no water for 



MUCI1 WATER THERE. 



23 



obedience to Lis commands once in all the ages. The following is the list of the 
public pools in Jerusalem, to which the whole population had access. 



NAMES. 


LENGTH. 


BREADTH. 


DEPTH. 




Feet. 


Feet. 


Feet. 


Pool of Bethesda, north of the Temple . 


360 


130 


75 


Pool of Hezekiah, north of Mount Zion 


210 


144 


3 to 4 


The King's Pool, now Pool of the Virgin, E. of Jer. 


15 


6 


Not great. 


Pool of Siloam, S.-E. of Jerusalem 


56 


18 


19 


Upper Gihon, K-W. " . . . 


316 


200 


18 


Lower Gihon, W. " 


592 


245 to 275 


35 to 42 


Solomon's Pools — Lower Pool .... 


582 


148 to 207 


East end 50 


" Middle Pool .... 


423 


160 to 250 


" 39 


" Upper Pool .... 


380 


229 to 236 


" 25 



Public baths were used for sanitary and religious purposes in most of the East- 
ern cities of note. 




THE FOOL OF HEZEKIAH. 



The case is cpiite clear, also, as to the time employed and the number of the 
administrators. The 'Twelve' and the 'Seventy' made eighty-two administrators 
of Christ's own selection, who were ready to administer the rite, out of the one 
hundred and twenty disciples present. Two minutes for each candidate allows the 



24 



MANY THOUSANDS IMMERSED. 



greatest deliberation in immersion, so that three thousand was indeed a small num- 
ber to immerse. In Ireland Patrick, its apostle, immersed seven kings and 11,000 
of their subjects in one day, according to Farrell's life of him. Austin immersed 
10,000 in the Swale, April 20, A. D. 598. Remigius immersed Clovis I. and 3,000 
of his warriors in one day ; and at Yelnmpilly, in the Madras Presidency, in July, 
A. D. 1878, 2,222 persons were immersed on their faith in Christ, with great quiet 
and devotion, by six Baptist missionaries 'in six hours, under the direction of Dr. 
Clough. Ten thousand might have been immersed at Pentecost, in Jerusalem, as 

easily as three. 

The Evangelist Luke tells us that after the 3,000 had been added to the 
believers at Jerusalem, they 'remained steadfast in the Apostles 1 doctrine and 

fellowship, and in break- 
ing of bread and in pray- 
ers.' Here he defines every 
true element in the Apos- 
tolic Church, and all that 
can be necessary to any 
Gospel Church to the end 
of time. They had given 
proof of repentance and 
trust in Christ ; they had 
received Baptism on their 
faith in Christ, and had 
followed it by fellowship, 
the Lord's Supper, and 
public worship. Luke's 
definition is the best that 
has ever been given, in 
all particulars. The 
Church at Jerusalem, to- 
gether with the other Apos- 
tolic Churches, are to be 
copied as the exact model 
of all Churches to the end 
of time. For this reason it is lamentable to see the haste and light treatment in 
which the New Testament is passed over, as if its pattern of a Church were to be 
disposed of as casually as possible, instead of being copied in exact likeness. 

The foundation principles of these divine organizations are, First, that the Word 
of God was their only rule of faith and practice. From A. D. 52 to the close of 
the first century the New Testament was completed, and Christianity stood in its 
fullness and freshness, its variety and unity. The New Testament Churches never 




POOL FOR ABLUTION — BABA-ATEL TEMPLE. 



THE TRUE GOSPEL CHURCH. 



25 



fell into the dangerous notion that any religious teaching is simply an opinion, 
but they held that the Scriptures are the only standard of authority and that their 
requisitions are from God. The slightest swerving from this basis makes antiquity, 
patristic belief, and human whim the exponents of Christianity, and so tradition 
and not divine authority becomes the standard of appeal; whereas the New Testa- 
ment covers all that the Apostolic Churches held and did, and is the only record 
of Christian truth. It stands 
out alone and contains all that 
the Churches of Christ need to 
their character and life, and for 
the purposes of authority, the 
testimony of the fathers is of 
no more value than that of 
other uninspired men. 

In the Apostolic Age the 
Church was a local body, and 
each Church was entirely inde- 
pendent of every other Church. 
The primary and literal mean- 
ing of the term Ecclesia desig- 
nates one organized assembly, 
and no more. Jesus and his P00L F0R R ™°™ ablution-golden temple, india. 

Apostles used the word with the strictest regard to its etymology. Its contemporary 
use in common secular life answered exactly to their use of the term, namely, to char- 
acterize a voluntary society of believers. The guilds and clubs of the Roman Em- 
pire, for trade, finance, literature, and even sports, were known as the Ecclesia of the 
times. The popular Ecclesia in a Greek city was formed of those who were called 
out, or selected, under the laws of citizenship, for the transaction of public business. 
They formed the assembly or congregation for deliberation in civil affairs. The use 
of any other word would have carried with it the idea of a mere crowd or a show, 
having other elements than those of a properly organized assembly. To the great 
abuse of the common Greek and Scriptural usage the needs of a hierarchy have 
forced a purely tropical sense upon the original word. And so, when the New Tes- 
tament used a common synecdoche, by which the whole is put for a part or a part for 
the whole, as the case happens to be, that is, the genus is put for many individuals — 
the word Church is forced to mean an invisible assembly — that is to say, an assembly 
which does not assemble. In the New Testament, a Church was not a mystical or 
secret body that never assembled, but the Churches at Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, 
and Rome were visible bodies, which met openly in these separate places. Each 
• body ' was founded on Christ, a ' rock,' its Plead, who governed it, and had no ideal 
or universal existence. Each Ecclesia was a tangible body, numbering so many by 




26 



BIGHTS OF APOSTOLIC CHURCHES. 



count, local and organized, and as absolutely Christ's Church as if there were not an- 
other such an assembly on earth. The same thought leads Paul to say of himself, Christ 
' loved me and gave himself for me,' as if he had died for none other. So he says 
to the several Hebrew-Christians scattered abroad : ! Ye are come to a full assem- 




st. Paul's bay. 




bly, to the Ecclesia of the first-born, whose names are enrolled in heaven.' Here 
the whole is put for the part, many individual bodies put for the genus, so that, 
properly, it is impossible for an assembly to consist of persons who do not as- 
semble. 

The right of the several Apostolic Churches to manage all their internal affairs 



COMMON FAITH AND LOVE. 



27 



sprang from the fact that each congregation was perfect in itself, for all the purposes 
of Church life. In all localities they were organized after the same order, and Ave have 
no instance where the right of any Church to regulate all its own affairs was denied, 




RIVER BARADA — DAMASCUS IN THE DISTANCE. 




until about the fourth century. Each followed the law of perfect liberty, while 
holding other Churches in sisterly reverence, under a common faith and love, know- 
ing no other constraint than to keep the law of Christ, each amongst themselves, and 
to maintain a perfect sovereignty for the ends of self-government. 



28 



EARLY MISSIONARY ZEAL. 



The missionary zeal- and success of the Apostolic Churches were wonderful. 
True, stubborn prejudice against the Gentiles had restrained the Jewish Christians 
from taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth, until after the conversion of Saul of 
Tarsus. As a learned but bigoted Jew he was ' exceeding mad ' against the Church, 
and persecuted the saints unto death. He determined to crush the rising faith at 
once, or it must be fatal to the ancient religion, and in the crusade against it he 




BARNABAS INTRODUCING PAUL TO PETER. 



made himself a leader. Hearing that Christ had gathered a flock at Damascus, he 
caught new fire and flew to their slaughter. That city was one hundred and forty 
miles from Jerusalem, and at its gates Christ met and stopped him in his mad career 
There he was converted, and after his baptism he became the champion of the Chris- 
tian faith. When he returned to the Holy City, the Christians there were afraid 



MARTYRDOM OF THE APOSTLES. 



29 



of him. He remained only fifteen days, but after meeting Peter and Barna- 
bas he went abroad, everywhere preaching the 
word, and was the most zealous and success- 
ful of the apostles. The first Gospel Church 
which he planted was at Antioch, and thence 
Christianitj 7 spread in every direction. He 
preached Jesus and the resurrection on Mars' 
Hill, at Athens, in Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, 
Colosse, Thessalonica, and throughout Galatia, 
and other countries. At last he took his jour- 
ney to Rome and planted the Gospel in the far 
West. He was martyred at Rome under Nero. 
Tradition assigns the labors of Matthew 
(Levi) to Ethiopia and different parts of Asia ; 
Philip to Phrygia, in Asia Minor ; Thomas to 
Parthia ; Andrew to Syria, Thrace, and Achaia ; 
Thaddeus to Persia or Arabia ; Bartholomew 
(Nathanael) is said to have labored in India; Simon (Zelotes) in Egypt and 
Lydia ; and Matthias in Egypt. 

It is supposed that all the apostles suffered martyrdom except John. When 




PAUL PHEACHIXG. 




FIFTH MILE OF THE VIA APPIA KESTORED. 



young he was the only apostle who clung to his Master's cross on Calvary. Being 



30 



THE BELOVED DISCIPLE. 



willing to lose bis life, for Christ's sake it was saved, for lie was the only one of 
them who died a natural death. It is reported that, when extreme old age and in- 
firmity rendered him unable to preach, or even to 
stand, lie was frequently brought to the Church 
at Ephesus, where he would stretch out his 
hands and say : ' Little children, love one an- 
other. Keep yourselves from idols.' The time 
and circumstances of his death are unknown, but 
its date is conjectured at from A. D. 98 to 100. 
He had been a disciple of the Baptist, the first 
to put in the Gospel sickle, and now he bound 
up its last sheaf. The primitive Churches had 
been perfectly organized by the apostles, their missionary spirit aroused, and the 
canon of the ISTew Testament completed; then, but not till then, did the last apostle 
fall asleep, leaving, ' One Lord, one faith, and one baptism.' 




ANCIENT SHIP. 





THEATRE AT EPHESUS — SEEN BY PAUL AND JOHN. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE OFFICERS AND ORDINANCES OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH. 

THE first office to be considered is that of the deacon. This word is the English 
of the Greek diaconos, and means a servant ; literally, to pursue after, to 
hasten by speed in service. The cardinals are regarded as the servants, or deacons 
of the Pope, a fact which accounts for their strange costume, worn in imitation of 
the ancient errand-man. His hat has a broad brim to shade the eyes from the sun, 
with lonor strings to tie under the chin in windy weather : and the end of his cloak 
is tucked under his girdle so that the limbs may be free for speed. The outside 
pressure of persecution at Jerusalem, and the burden of deep poverty, called for 
great sagacity and fidelity in the Christian leaders. Both Christ and his Apostles 
were poor, so that his servants had been trained to mutual dependence, and the use 
of a common treasury during his ministry had thrown a new light upon poverty, 
and given a new religion to the poor. Thus, when thousands of the same class 
came into the infant Church, their dependence seemed crippling. At this time the 
whole empire was poor, and the endurance of Christianity was thoroughly tried. 
The financial world had become exhausted, by disruption and war, luxury and 
waste, and society was demoralized by the neglect of agriculture in large tracts of 
country. A few were wealthy, but taxation was oppressive and the poor were very 
poor. All great cities were deeply in debt, having borrowed large sums of money to 
build those massive structures whose ruins are now the wonder of the world. On 
these loans they paid exorbitant interest, which left them bankrupt and filled the 
land with paupers. Rome itself had 44,000 wretched lodging-houses and other 
apartments where squalor abounded, to 1,780 decent habitations; and Cicero, who 
died B. C. 43, reports that city in his time as having only 2,000 proprietors out 
of 1,200,000 inhabitants. 1 

But no province of the Empire was so impoverished as Palestine. It had 
always been an agricultural country, without manufactures or commerce. Jsow, 
its most enterprising people were scattered over the world for the purposes of 
trade, it had passed through a long succession of wars and reverses, and the extor- 
tionate tribute which Borne had wrung out of its fibers had reduced it to abject 
poverty. The site of its capital was chosen for its strong natural fortifications, but 
when it proved vulnerable it was left as the central sanctuary and seat of theology, 
without wealth to give it attraction, for more than once it was helped by outside 
charity. Still, to all foreign Jews it was the monument of holy memories, and the 



32 JERUSALEM POOR. 

object of life-long hope. The visits of the wealthy at the feasts furnished it with 
some supplies, but all Jews returned to its holy places and privileges for the solace 
of their souls, when deep poverty overtook them, especially widows and orphans 
who had laid the bones of their dead in strange soil. The ' chief joy ' of these was 
to gather together what little they had, and hasten to die within the shadow of its 
hallowed walls, even if they slept in ' the place to bury strangers in.' Yet these 
classes were not always welcome; even the doctors of the law, who treated all 
women lightly, refused religious teaching to women. This state of things ac- 
counts for the great poverty which Christianity found in Jerusalem, and gives 
new weight to Christ's saying: 'The poor ye have always with you.' Sometimes 
pagan rulers and corporations were moved with pity to the extremely poor ; but here 
is a new thing in the earth, in the form of a new religion which made benevolence 
its ideal. Its Founder had been born in a stable, had spent his life in deep poverty, 
had been buried in another man's tomb ; and now he had made men members one 
of another, had created a new virtue in the heart toward the weak, and had 
elevated men to thrift by sympathy. The poor, therefore, embraced the Gospel as 
a fresh source of strength ; it made them rich in bread as well as in faith, and 
consumed the partition-walls between the poor and rich in the flames of brotherly 
love. Instead of demanding hecatombs of beasts at the hands of widow and 
orphan, it tendered them 'one sacrifice for sin,' offered forever, and made the 
outcast and famishing its altar of sacrifice. Such love led those who had worldly 
goods to give to the poor, and bound the members of the new faith in a oneness 
which made all things common. Yet they neither abandoned the rights of owner- 
ship in private property, as Peter's questions to Ananias show, nor adopted a 
communist life, such as would pauperize the members of the Church. 

A mere glance reveals the difficulty of the twelve in dealing with this state 
of affairs ; they spread a free table daily for such as needed the bounty of the 
Church, for as yet they had no division of labor with others, and out of this 
common meal served to the multitude the deacon's office arose. The Church at 
Jerusalem was composed entirely of Jews and proselytes from paganism to the 
Jewish faith, some natives, some foreign born. Those born in Palestine spoke the 
Aramaic and read the Scriptures in the Hebrew ; hence they were called Hebrews. 
Those born in other lands read and spoke the Greek or Hellenic (from Hellas, in 
Thessaly, the cradle of the Greeks), and were called Hellenists. These were held 
in disrepute by the native Jews, and were treated as inferiors because they mixed 
with the Gentiles. They had seen more of the world than the Hebrews, were less 
hampered by the rigid and official orthodoxy of Jerusalem, and were more cosmo- 
politan and less aristocratic in their feelings toward others. These phases of human 
nature brought jealousies into the fraternity, and as the Hellenist widows were the 
most numerous, they necessarily called for a larger share of the bounty. So the 
more strict brethren took it into their heads that their poor were ' overlooked/ 



DEACONS; THEIR QUALIFICATIONS. 33 

and with the true instinct of modern Baptist grumblers, they began to fill the 
Church with complaints that the distribution of bread was not even and fair. 
The adjustment of this business so diverted the attention of the Apostles and 
consumed their time, that they asked the Church to select seven men from their own 
ranks, who should ' help,' ' wait ' and ' serve,' at the provision-tables, and they would 
confirm the popular choice. They also laid down clearly the qualifications for the 
work. They must be ' of good report, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom ; ' discreet, 
having the confidence of the people ; being marked for consecration, integrity, sound 
judgment, and impartiality; all this, although their duties were purely material, or,, 
as Jerome expresses it, they were ' attendants on tables and widows.' ' The seven' 
were selected, but we are not to infer that they were all Hellenists because they- 
bore Greek names, as the Jews commonly took such names, which renders it likely 
that impartiality ruled, and that they were taken equally from both factions, with, 
one ' proselyte ' to keep the balance even. Poor human nature always tells the.- 
same story. 

Yet those chosen to this service are not called ' deacons? but simply the- 
' seven,' to distinguish them from the ' twelve.' We meet this word first in the 
New Testament in the Epistle to the Philippians, and some think that the office 
was borrowed from the almoners of the synagogue. Dr. Lightfoot, the present 
Bishop of Durham, pronounces it ' a baseless though a very common assumption, 
that the Christian diaconate was copied from the arrangements of the synagogue.' 
The duties of the Levite in the temple, and the office of the Chusan in the syna- 
gogue, were of an entirely different character from those of the deacon. The Levite 
took care of the temple sacrifices, removed the blood, offal and ashes of the altar, 
served as door-keeper at the gates, and aided in the chorus of the psalmody. The 
duties of the Chusan were of the same order, so far as care for the synagogue 
went, and aid in the services allowed. But the only work of the deacon was 
to serve at the table in the daily meal and relieve the poor, a labor which called! 
for another class of qualifications from those of these Jewish officers. In that dis- 
honest and licentious age such a delicate trust as that held by the deacon required 
rare spirituality and spotless character, keen insight of human nature, large patience 
and singular tact in dealing with the suffering, as well as a broad and intelligent 
sympathy. In a word, his sacred duties called for the ' Holy Spirit and wisdom,' 
special graces which neither Levite nor Chusan needed for their work. 

The fact is most marked that those officers at a heathen feast, whose duty it 
was to serve the portions of food which were eaten, were called the ' deacons? One 
officer slew the victims ; another offered them in sacrifice or cooked them ; then 
this third officer served the flesh to the devotees. 2 This fact is very suggestive, as 
showing the unpretentiousness of the office and title, and may account for the sacer- 
dotal air which superstition has thrown around the diaconate in some communions. 
This election created a new office in the Church, but not a new order in the 



S4 DEACONS NOT MINISTERS. 

ministry, as that term is now technically used. Alford warns his readers (on 
Acts vi) ' Not to imagine that we have here the institution of an ecclesiastical order 
so named ' — deacons. In modern parlance they were ' laymen ' before their election, 
and they remained so after. The reason given for the creation of their office was, 
that the Apostles might be relieved from those duties which interfered with their 
full 'ministry of the Word.' One set of ministers was not created to help another 
to do the same work, but duties that were not ministerial or pastoral were separated 
from those that were, and given into other hands. So that the deaconship was not 
probationary to the eldership, nor have we any evidence that in the first century any 
-deacon became an elder. Neither did their office prevent their doing other Christian 
""work, for we find Philip the first witness for Christ in Samaria. But he did not 
■publish the good news by virtue of his office as a deacon, any more than Stephen 
^was martyred as a deacon. Bishop Taylor has abundantly shown, in his 'Liberty 
'of Prophesying,' that in the Apostolic Churches each believer of the brotherhood 
had the right to proclaim the Gospel as well as the pastors. The work of spreading 
it by preaching was 'left to each one as a question of capacity and not of office. 
Even the private worshipers amongst the Jews had the right of public speaking 
in the synagogue, as we see by the freedom of our Lord and his Apostles there, for 
they were not officers in that assembly. So it was in the Christian congregations ; 
and, of course, the office of a deacon did not deprive him of the right to teach in 
common with his brethren. Luke tells us that the persecution at Jerusalem 
scattered the Church there 'except the Apostles,' and that the 'scattered,' the whole 
lay membership of that Church, preached the Word. So the deaconship did not shut 
up a deacon to the service of tables only ; he might do missionary work, by right of 
his personal regeneration, and attend to his office, also. Did the Apostle Paul act 
improperly when he carried the collection of the Grecian Churches to Jerusalem, 
because he was not officially a deacon ? Thus a deacon might engage in other re- 
ligious labor besides that imposed by his office. 

The instructions given to the deacon in the Epistles, show the functions of 
his office to have been the same in the latter period of the Apostolic Age that 
they were when the office was created ; and it nowhere appears that they exer- 
cised the pastoral or ministerial office. Even in matters relating to the relief of the 
poor they were not supreme. When Paul and Barnabas brought relief to the poor 
saints at Jerusalem, they delivered the gift to the 'elders' and not to the deacons: 
and no deacons assisted in the call, deliberations, or decisions of the advisory Council 
at Jerusalem. Paul's associations there were all with the elders and not the deacons 
of the Church, showing that the deacons held no rank in the pastoral office. 
Thirty years after their office was formed, he instructs them, and enjoins precisely 
those qualifications for filling it, which were needed in one whose business it was to 
go from house to house dispensing alms, and none other. In his Epistle to the 
Corinthians, A. D. 57, he calls them 'helps;' in that to the Romans, 'the minis- 



THE DEAC0NE88. 33 

tration ; ' and in his letter to Timothy, he lays special stress upon their holding 
' the faith in a good conscience,' as men free from vices, especially the sins of greed 
and gossiping, not even mentioning that they should be ' apt to teach ; ' which would 
be a strange omission if teaching were a special part of their office, as a subordinate 
order in the pastoral ministry. In his Epistle to Titus, about A. T>. 66, he does not 
mention the deacons at all, although he says much to 'elders,' of their appointment, 
work and qualifications ; showing again that he did not rank deacons in the pastoral 
office, nor were they so ranked in that age. In the third century, when there were 
forty-six elders in the congregation at Rome, there were only seven deacons ; and the 
Council of JSTeo-Csesarea, A. D. 314-325, decreed that no Church should have above 
seven. Origen says, that ' The deacons dispense the Church's money to the poor ; ' and 
in non-Episcopal Churches this office remains substantially uncorrupted to our times. 
The deaconess, in the Apostolic Churches did much the same work as the 
deacon. Grotius says : ' In Judea the deacons could administer freely to the 
females,' but amongst the Greeks and farther East, the enforced seclusion of 
women deprived them largely of the public administrations of men; this was the 
case, to a certain extent, amongst the Romans also. But all through the Oriental 
nations men were excluded from the apartments of females, contrary to that social 
freedom which marks western civilization. In all the spheres of life, woman suf- 
fered a degradation to which we are strangers, and Christianity purposing to lift 
her up, provided for her the deaconess, to bless her own sex in her own peculiar 
way, publicly and privately. Phoebe is the first known to us who filled that honor- 
able office, and Paul passes a high encomium upon her, 'she succored many.' 
There was abundant room for these valuable helpers as the Churches were then con- 
stituted, amongst the rich and poor, women of reputation and the debased slave- 
women. The deaconess possessed high qualifications, being ' grave, sober, faithful, 
and not slanderous.' Her sacred duties demanded devotion, approved character 
and ability, requiring her to be kind, intelligent, courteous, and to follow 'every 
good work.' Eight years after Paul had spoken so gratefully of Phoebe, he gives 
full instruction as to these qualifications. These honorable women were chosen 
from matrons or widows well advanced in life, and many of our best interpreters 
think that Paul describes them in 1 Tim. v, 9, 10 : ' Let not one be enrolled as a 
widow under threescore years old, having been the wife of one husband ; well 
reported of for good works; if she brought up children, if she lodged strangers, if 
she washed the feet of the saints [in hospitality], if she relieved the afflicted, if she 
diligently followed every good work.' "We have reason to believe that many 
of these 'elect' ladies brought great honor to the faith, for Pliny, in his famous let- 
ter to the Emperor Trajan, A- D- 110-111, says, that he had just examined 'two 
women-servants who are called ministers,' deaconesses; by which, he means that he 
had tortured them, as was common when Christian women suffered persecution for 
Christ. 



36 ELDERS. 

The order of deaconess continued in the Latin Church down to about the sixth 
century, and in the Greek to the twelfth ; and was discontinued, principally because 
the diaconate became a priestly office which women could not fill ; nuns then took 
the place of deaconesses. Anciently they were ordained by form as well as by 
vote, and the work known as the ' Apostolic Constitutions,' written about A. D. 300, 
contains this beautiful prayer used at their ordination : ' Eternal God, Fathei of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, Creator of man and of woman ; thou who didst fill with thy 
Spirit, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, and Huldah : thou who didst vouchsafe to a 
woman the birth of thy only begotten Son : . . . look down now upon this, thy 
handmaid, and bestow on her the Holy Spirit, that she may worthily perform the 
work permitted to her to thy honor, and to the glory of Christ.' So long as the 
immersion of adult females remained in the Churches, the deaconess waited upon 
them in baptism ; but, says Archbishop Ken rick : ' This class of females having 
ceased, from a variety of causes, it became expedient to abstain from the immersion 
of females;' and he adds the reason, 'it is certain that the applicant entered the 
font in a state of entire nudity.' 3 According to ' Hanbury's Memorials,' the Con- 
gregationalists of England and Holland restored the office to some extent, in the 
seventeenth century, and the Moravians continue it to this time. Also the Broad- 
mead Baptist Church, at Bristol, England, two centuries ago, adopted the full 
Apostolic model, by selecting a plurality of elders, with deacons and deaconesses, 
making the duties of the latter, the care of the sick and the poor. 

The shepherds or pastors of the Apostolic Churches were known as Presby- 
ters, or Elders, from presbuteroi ; and as Bishops, or overseers, from episkqpoi. 
This fact should stand in its own order of New Testament time ; for if we take it 
out of its historical surroundings and throw it backward or forward into another 
century, it will lose its distinctive value. Dean Alford says, with clear chronolog- 
ical truth : ' In those days titles sprung out of realities and were not merely hier- 
archical classifications.' In such a question as this, chronology is the stoutest logic. 
We must, therefore, consider and restrict these titles to their primitive sense, as best 
defining the office which they represent. They are entirely synonymous in the New 
Testament, and the nature of the office which they represent, is to be drawn from 
their acknowledged meaning. 

Pastors appeared in all these Churches very early after their organization, and 
the Hebrew Christians called them presbyters (elders) while the Gentile Churches 
called them bishops (overseers), the terms being interchangeable. The leaders or 
rulers of the synagogue were called presbyters, but they were not prototypes of the 
Christian presbyters, for there was next to nothing in common between the two. 
The synagogue could in no sense become the pattern of the Christian congregation, 
' which was constituted for a different purpose, and demanded that freer and more 
independent form, which was in harmony with the genius of Christ's more generous 
teaching 1 . 



PASTORS ARE BISHOPS. 37 



IS'eander says : 



' It may be disputed whether the Apostles designed from the first, that believers 
should form a society exactly on the model of the synagogue. The social element 
of both had something of similarity, enough to warrant the use of the current word 
presbyter in the ancient sense of leadership ; this being the sense in which both 
civil and sacred rulers had long been known in Israel, and by which the members of 
the Sanhedrin were then known. 1 4 

So, then, every one knew what parties were referred to in the Christian con- 
gregation when its ' elders ' were spoken of. But the Gentiles, who were not 
familiar with the peculiarity of Jewish titles and institutions, could not so well 
come to a knowledge of this spiritual office by the use of the word, when standing 
alone and unexplained. To them, the term elder expressed age, but little of fitness 
or rank. Another term was in use amongst the Greeks which exactly expressed the 
duties of the Christian presbyter, namely, the word episJcopos overseer. With 
them, this was purely a civil and secular name, which was used in private associa- 
tions, or in municipal and magisterial bodies. The superintendents of finance, of 
workmen, the inspectors of bread and produce, and the overseers of public affairs 
generally, were designated by this term. In fact, all persons who had oversight of 
affairs, either piiblic or private, were known as bishops. For this reason the same 
class of men who were known as elders in the Jewish-Christian Churches, were called 
bishops, or overseers, in the Gentile Churches, more frequently. 

Thus Bishop Lightfoot, after speaking of the presbyters, asks : 

v What must be said of the term bishop ? It has been shown that in the Apos- 
tolic writings the two are merely different designations of the same office. How and 
where was this second name originated ? To the officers of Gentile Churches is the 
term applied, as a synonym for presbyter. At Philippi, in Asia Minor, in Crete, 
the presbyter is so called. In the next generation the title is employed in a letter 
written by the Greek Church of Rome to the Greek Church at Corinth. Thus the 
word would seem to be especially Hellenic. Beyond this we are left to conjecture. 
But if we may assume that the directors of religious and social clubs amongst the 
heathen are commonly so called, it woidd naturally occur, if not to the Gentile 
Christians themselves, at all events to their heathen associates, as a fit designation 
for the presiding members of the new society. The infant Church of Christ which 
appeared to the Jew as a synagogue, would be regarded by the heathen as a confra- 
ternity.' 5 

The duties of the bishop-elders were, to feed and rule the flock of Christ as 
shepherds, by guidance, instruction, and watch-care. Paul first uses the word 
bishop at Miletus, when he charges the presbyters of the Church at Ephesus to take 
heed to the flock over which the Holy Spirit had made them bishops. Here he 
two names are used interchangeably as descriptive of the same thing. On this point 
Neander remarks : 

' That the name also of episcopus was altogether synonymous with that of 
presbyter, is clearly collected from the passages of Scripture where both appellations 
are interchanged (Acts xx ; compare verse 17 with verse 28 ; Titus i, 5-7), as well 



38 PLURALITY OF ELDERS. 

as from those where the mention of the office of deacon follows immediately after 
that of " episcopoi," so that a third class of officers could not lie between the two. 
Phil, i, 1 ; 1 Tim. iii, 1-8. This interchange of the two appellations is a proof of 
their entire coincidence? 6 

As to the kind of rule which these bishops exercised, it was executive only, and 
for the purpose of soul up-building, in submission to the truth which they taught, 
and not for the exercise of lordship. So far from its being an exercise of personal 
power, they were held responsible to the local Church which they served for their 
conduct as stewards. Neander says again : ' They were not destined to be unlim- 
ited monarchs, but rulers and guides in an ecclesiastical republic, and to conduct 
every thing in conjunction witli the Church assembled together, as the servants and 
not the masters of which they were to act.' 7 The congregation having first taken 
them from the common ranks by their own democratic action, as Athens invested 
its officers with governing powers in olden times, they were responsible to the body 
which created them for the exercise of their powers. 

All sorts of false pretentions have been hung upon the word ' bishop,' as used 
by the writers of the New Testament. But Phil, i, 1; Acts xx, 17; and James 
v, 14, set forth the fact that there were several bishops in the same congregation, an 
idea which will not harmonize with the assumption that a bishop ranks above an 
elder, or even a body of elders. Then, 1 Peter v, 1, 2, solemnly charges the 'elder' 
to use well his episcopal functions. Even as late as Jerome A. D. 331-370, this 
oneness of office was generally admitted in the Churches, for he- says : ' The elder is 
identical with the bishop, and before parties had so multiplied under diabolical 
influence, the Churches were governed (meaning each Church) by a council of 
elders.' 

Nor were the so-called 'powers' of Timothy and Titus in any sense those of 
the modern prelate. They were merely the functions of missionary evangelists. 
These holy men were sent to establish feeble Churches already planted, and to 
organize new ones, as the same class of men to-day who labor without prelatical 
authority. Neither did James assume authority at Jerusalem after the form of a 
modern diocesan. He simply attained greater influence than other pastors by his 
all-absorbing consecration to God. and to the feeding of his flock, as a holy pastor 
over that single congregation. In association with his fellow-elders in that body, he 
sacredly guarded its interests as a brotherhood. Persecution was perpetually breaking 
up this and other Churches, and was one of the things which made this plurality 
of elders in the same congregation necessary. The first blow was generally aimed 
at the elders, as the official heads of these communities. Some of them were cut 
down, others were obliged to flee for their lives, and at the best the Churches were 
broken into groups, especially in large cities, so that they must be ministered to, 
when, where, and as they could. When the elders did meet together for con- 
sultation, either in time of peace or in persecution, some one must preside over 



CARSON, CAMPBELL, DAVIDSON. 39 

their conferences ; and he who did so, acted simply as the peer of his brethren, 
without authority over them ; for while he was a bishop each one of his brethren was 
the same. This, James did at Jerusalem, no more and no less. 

Again, what was known as the presbytery in the Apostolic Churches was not 
made up of a body of elders, or pastors from the various local Churches, for 'Script- 
ure presbytery,' as Dr. Carson says, ' is the eldership, or plurality of elders in a par- 
ticular congregation." 8 There is absolutely nothing in the New Testament which 
gives those who rule in one Church any authority in another ; and more, no Church 
is mentioned as having but one bishop or elder. These had no power out of their 
own congregation, and no such distinction exists even there as pastoral elders and 
ruling elders. 

Both Dr. Geo. Campbell and Neander have clearly shown that the elders in 
one Church were all rulers, for the liberty, edification, and usefulness of the body, 
and that no class or distinction existed amongst them. Had there been two classes, 
their qualifications had differed with their duties, and so they would have been des- 
ignated by different names. No elders are spoken of who do not rule, who are not 
pastors, but all pastors are known as elders. We read of ' all the elders at Jerusalem,' 
of 'elders for each Church' (not an elder), as at Derby, Lystra, Antioch, and other 
places. At Lystra Paul met with Timothy, and most likely it was there that ' The 
hands of the presbytery ' were laid upon him. Not the hands of presbyters from 
various local Churches; but, in the language of Dr. Samuel Davidson: 

' The elders set over a single Congregational Church.' 9 The phrase, ' The pres 
bytery,' as the phrase, 'the lawyer,' 'the statesman,' in the classification of men, 
means every presbytery, in the classification of the bodj r of elders in the several 
Churches. Carson says, that the word denotes: 'A certain kind of plurality of 
elders. It represents stated association. The accidental or occasional meeting of 
the elders of a number of Churches, would be a meeting of the elders, not of the 
presbytery. The word denotes both the plurality and the union. The senate is not 
even a plurality of senators. ... It is taken for granted in this kind of expression, 
that it is a definite, well-known body of men acting in association. As there is no 
such association among the elders of different Churches, it must be the elders of one 
Church. 10 Neander corroborates this view, thus: 'It is certain that every Church 
was governed by a union of the elders, or overseers, chosen from among them- 
selves, and we find among them no individual distinguished above the rest, who pre- 
sided as a primus inter pares, first among equals.' 

But, above all absurd positions, is that which makes the bishop of modern times 
the successor of the Apostles. When they died they appointed none to fill their 
places, for their office was peculiar and connected only with the planting of Chris- 
tianity, by upholding Christ's teachings and requirements ; their mission being con- 
firmed by the special gifts of the Holy Spirit. All this was indispensable until the 
standard of faith and practice was settled in the inspired Books ; they themselves, for 
the time being, filling the place of those writings, as the chosen organ of the Spirit. 
Then, they were the only authoritative guides for the Gospel Churches, by whom the 



40 NO DIOCESAN EPISCOPACY. 

will of Christ was communicated. Through their tongue and pen the Spirit gave 
his directions and decisions, and they are now exactly what the Churches of their 
age recognized them ; the New Testament supplied their place as the channel through 
which the Sjfirit now speaks to the Churches. 

Those who would foist diocesan episcopacy upon the New Testament Churches, 
think that they find their stronghold in the phrase 'angel of the Church' (angelos), 
which is simply a messenger. In Matt, xi, 10, Jehovah himself calls John the 
Baptist, 'my angel' (messenger), and in turn, John calls his own messengers to 
Christ, ' angels.' Luke xviii, 18-21. But were these prototypes of modern prelates ? 
Even Paul's thorn in the flesh is called by himself an ' angel,' ' a messenger of Satan.' 
2 Cor. xii, 7. So, the seven letters to the Churches, Rev. ii, iii, imply that the angel 
of the Churches was some person sent from each of them on a temporary mission, 
and chosen by the Church itself for that mission. Each of the Churches had its 
separate messenger ; there was not one angel only for the seven, after the order of 
modern episcopacy. A cause must be hard pressed, to lay violent hands upon this 
part of the Apocalypse in support of such an innovation. 

Patmos, where the Apostle John wrote this book, was not far from the seven 
Churches of Asia, and it was natural that the holy prisoner should request each one 
of them to send some faithful messenger who should receive from him, personally, 
what message he had from Christ to send to them severally. The Apostle Paul sent 
his Epistles to the Churches in the same way, for each messenger who carried them, 
was then capable of proving that they were not forgeries. And, now, this was the 
only means left at the command of John for sending Christ's revelations to the 
Churches, by trustworthy hands. Is it surprising, then 5 chat Jesus should instruct his 
imprisoned servant, to write this and that message to this and that Church, and to 
entrust the message to these individual messengers? The trust which the Saviour 
himself confided to them, entitled them to be called 'seven stars,' each bearing new 
light to one of the seven Churches of which they themselves were the ' seven lamp 
stands' set for the illumination of all around them. These Churches were not to be 
deprived of necessary light because John was a prisoner ; but Jesus would prove 
to them by these seven epistles, that he still held them as stars in his right hand, 
and had not turned over their keeping to a sevenfold episcopacy, but maintained for 
each of them a separate message, to be brought to them by seven faithful messen- 
gers, as seven separate congregations, who, despite their faults, were still dear to 
their Sovereign Lord. 

Baptism was the first ordinance of the Apostolic Churches. Our Lord stamped 
this institution with a marked and reverend dignity, putting higher honor upon it 
than on any act in Christianity, by making it the only institution to be enforced in 
the august names of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Neither the preaching of the 
Gospel, the administration of the Supper, nor any other transaction has this higli 
sanction from his lips, because none of them hold the same solemn relation to the 



THE COMMON ABUSE OF BAPTISM. 4 1 

Trinity which this holds. He did more than merely command baptism to be ad- 
ministered by the authority of the Trinity ; as Dr. Dwight puts the formula, ' JSTot 
in but into the name ' of the Trinity. Of course, not into the essence of the 
Godhead, but the baptized are publicly introduced into the family of God, and are 
entitled in a special manner to the name of God ; or, as Dr. Trollope better expresses 
the sense : ' By this solemn act we are devoted to the faith, worship, and obedience 
of these three, as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.' The conception of divine 
dignity which Christ threw into baptism, led the Apostolic Churches to see the 
proper place which it holds in the Gospel system, and to shape their polity accord- 
ingly. Their conduct contrasts strikingly with that modern fanaticism which 
pushes it out of the place given to it by Christ, either by making it the source of 
moral regeneration, or by depreciating it as an optional rite or form. Our only safety 
is in brushing away the fog which this abuse has thrown about it, and in going 
boldly back to examine and practice it, as we find it in the New Testament. 

Jesus declared it to be from heaven ; he doubly honored its appointment 
by his Father, by obediently submitting to it on the opening of his own min- 
istry, and by enjoining it on others to the end of time. It was the first institu- 
tion in his mind when he himself began to preach ; and the last that he pressed 
upon those whom he left to preach, when he charged them on the ' mountain 
in Galilee,' as he spoke his last command in his resurrection body. As John 
Henry Newman says: 'Friends do not ask for literal commands, but from their 
knowledge of the speaker they understand his half-words, and from love to him 
they anticipate his wishes.' Here is not even the reverend ' half-word,' it is his 
last command that all believing men should be baptized upon their faith. As the 
Captain of salvation he gave this military mandate, 'Follow me!' and made the 
law doubly positive by his own example. It was this simple, heart-felt sincerity in 
obeying him which led a noted saint to say : ' Wherever I have seen the print of his 
shoe on earth, there I have coveted to set my foot, too.' The Apostolic Churches 
associated those primal exercises of the heart — repentance, forgiveness of sin, and 
regeneration of soul — with baptism ; these were the preparation for baptism, which 
exhibited the new religious state into which their members were brought. Hence, 
says Dr. Jacob : ' It was evident from the first that Christian baptism, though in its 
outward form oue single act, represented no single, isolated state of feeling — but a 
spiritual transaction carried on in the spirit and conscience, and then declaring itself 
externally. . . . Consequently, the fact that persons had been baptized is in the 
New Testament often referred to, both as indicating their privileged position, and 
as reminding them of their serious obligation to live in a manner not unworthy of 
it.' 11 This exactly accords with the inspired teaching. ' Through grace ye are all 
the children of God, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ, put on Christ.' 
Gal. iii, 27. 'Buried with him in your baptism in which ye were also raised up 
with him, through faith in the operation of God.' Col. ii, 12. Men who pro- 



42 THE PLACE FILLED BY BAPTISM. 

fessed faith and were baptized were regarded by those Churches as true believers, 
until their conduct proved the contrary. Peter teaches the same doctrine when he 
says that ' baptism is not the putting away of the filth of the flesh,' the mere 
cleansing of the body ; it goes deeper and signifies the inward state of the baptized, 
which must correspond with the outward appearance ; by ' the answer of a good 
conscience toward God.' What a terrible rebuke is this to the ignorant notion that 
if your own conscience approves of your baptism, you have all the baptism that 
you need. No, the Apostle insists that the purity of your conscience as a saved man 
must correspond to the profession which you make when you are buried with 
Christ in baptism. Thus, Jerome understood the New Testament, and says : ' First 
they taught all nations, then immerse those that are taught, in water ; for it cannot 
be that the body should receive the sacrament of baptism unless the soul has before 
received the truth of faith.' 12 

In the last edition of Herzog's ' Encyclopaedia ' ( Art. Tavfe) these words are 
used : ' Every-where in the New Testament the presupposition is, that only those 
who believe are to be baptized. That in the New Testament no direct trace of 
infant baptism is found may be regarded as settled. Efforts to prove its presence 
suffer from the lack of presupposing what is to be proved.' 

Although Liddon makes baptism the instrument of regeneration, perhaps no 
modern writer so lucidly sets forth its relation to regeneration as he, and his force- 
ful clearness will justify the following long quotation : 

'Regeneration thus implies a double process, one destructive, the othei con- 
structive; by it the old life is killed, and the new life forthwith bursts into 
existence. This double process is effected by the sacramental incorporation of the 
baptized, first with Christ crucified and dead, and then with Christ rising from the 
dead to life ; although the language of the Apostle distinctly intimates that a 
continued share in the resurrection-life depends upon the co-operation of the will of 
the Christian. But the moral realities of the Christian life, to which the grace of 
baptism originally introduces the Christian, correspond with, and are effects of, 
Christ's death and resurrection. Regarded historically, these events belong to the 
irrevocable past. But for us Christians the crucifixion and the resurrection are not 
mere past events of history ; they are energizing facts from which no lapse of centu- 
ries can sever us ; they are perpetuated to the end of time within the Kingdom of 
the Redemption. The Christian is, to the end of time, crucified with Christ ; he 
dies with Christ ; he is buried with Christ ; he rises with Christ ; he lives with 
Christ. He is not merely made to sit together in heavenly places as being in Christ 
Jesus, he is a member of his Body, as out of his Flesh and out of his Bones. And 
of this profound incorporation baptism is the original instrument. The very form 
of the sacrament of regeneration, as it was administered to the adult multitudes 
who in the early days of the Church pressed for admittance into her communion, 
harmonizes with the spiritual results which it effects. As the neophyte is plunged 
beneath the waters, so the old nature is slain and buried with Christ. As Christ, 
crucified and entombed, rises with resistless might from the grave which can no 
longer hold him, so, to the eye of faith, the Christian is raised from the bath of 
regeneration radiant with a new and supernatural life. His gaze is to be fixed 
henceforth on Christ, who, being raised from the dead, dieth no more.' 13 



SCHOLARS ON BAPTISM. 43 

This high doctrinal significance of baptism was constantly kept in mind in the 
Apostolic Churches, when they buried the bodies of believers in the waters of seas, 
rivers, and other convenient places, and it could not be set forth in any other way. 
It would be wearisome to quote critics, historians, theologians, and the highest 
authorities in exposition to sustain this position, still a few may not be amiss. 

Dr. Cave says of ancient immersion : 

' By the persons being put into water was lively represented the putting off of 
the sins of the flesh, and being washed from the filth and pollution of them ; by his 
abode under it, which was a kind of burial into water, his entering into a state of 
death and mortification, like as Christ remained for some time under the state or 
power of death . . . and then by his emersion, or rising up out of the water,. was 
signified his entry upon a new course of life, differing from that which lie lived 
before.' 14 

Dean Goulburn voices the higher scholarship on this subject in these words : 

' There can be no doubt that baptism, when administered in the pristine and 
most correct form, is a divinely constituted emblem of bodily resurrection. . . . 
Animation having been for one instant suspended beneath the water, a type this of 
the interruption of man's energies by death, the body is lifted up again into the air 
by way of expressing emblematically, the new birth of resurrection.' 15 

The entire Greek Church, which at present numbers about 70,000,000 of com- 
municants, and Avhose custom it has always been to immerse, thus strongly expresses 
itself in its great standard, the ' Pedalion,' a folio of 4S4 pages, and sent forth 
under the authority of the Patriarch and Holy Synod, on pp. 29-33 : 

' The distinctive character of the institution of baptism, then, is immersion {bap- 
tisma), which cannot be omitted without destroying the mysterious meaning of the 
sacrament, and Avithout contradicting, at the same time, the etjmiological signification 
of the word which serves to designate it. The Western (Roman) Church, therefore, 
has separated from the imitation of Jesus Christ : she has caused all the sublimity 
of the external sign to disappear ; in short, she is guilty of an abuse of words, and 
of ideas in practicing baptism by aspersion, the mere announcement of which is a 
laughable contradiction.' 

With equal decision, but in milder terms, the Dean of Norwich complains that 
the substitution of sprinkling for immersion has utterly obscured 'the emblematical 
significance of the rite, and renders unintelligible to all but the educated, the Apostle's 
association of burial and resurrection, with the ordinance.' Those who are not Bap- 
tists find fault on this subject more bitterly than they do. A treatise authorized 
by the patriarchs of Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Alexandria, declares in Chapter 
vii, that the attempt to prove that the ancients sprinkled, is merely an attempt 
to palm off ' lies.' Chapter xix attempts to show ' that sprinkling being satanical, is 
opposed to Divine Baptism ; ' and Chapter xxxiv decides, ' That sprinkling is a Heret- 
ical Dogma.' Moses Stuart, the great scholar of our own country, says : ' I cannot 
see how it is possible for any candid man who examines the subject to deny this,' 
namely : that Apostolic Baptism was immersion. But Dr. Paine, Professor of Eccle- 



44 AUTHORITIES CONTINUED. 

siastical History in the Theological Seminary at Bangor, when charged by some of 
his brethren with Baptist sentiments, because he teaches that immersion prevailed in 
all Churches from the Apostles down, replies with great spirit : 

'As to the question of fact, the testimony is ample and decisive. No 
matter of Church history is clearer. The evidence is all one way, and all Church 
historians of any repute agree iu accepting it. We cannot 'claim even orig- 
inality in teaching it in a Congregational seminary ; and we really feel guilty of°a 
kind of anachronism in writing an article to insist upon it. It is a point on which 
ancient, mediaeval and modern historians alike, Catholics and Protestants, Lutherans 
and Calvinists, have no controversy ; and the simple reason for this uniformity is, 
that the statements of the early Fathers are so clear, and the light shed upon these 
statements from the early customs of the Church is so conclusive, that no historian 
who cares for his reputation would dare to deny it, and no historian who is worthy 
of the name would wish to. There are some historical questions concerning the 
early Church on which the most learned writers disagree .... but on this one of 
the early practice of immersion, the most distinguished antiquarians, — such as Bing- 
ham, Augusti, Coleman, Smith, and historians such as Mosheim, Giesler, Hase, 
Neander, Millman, Schaff and Alzog (Catholic) hold a common language. . . . Any 
scholar who denies that immersion was the baptism of the Christian Church for 
thirteen centuries, betrays utter ignorance or sectarian blindness.' 16 

Herzog says : ' Baptism was always performed by immersion in flowing water.' 17 

So the learned Schaff, on Rom. vi, 3 : ' The meaning of baptizo in this passage 
is undoubtedly immerse, and the whole force and beauty of the illustration lies in 
this very allusion to the act of immersion and emersion.' 18 

The following extract from Coleman's 'Antiquities' very accurately expresses 
what all agree to : 

' In the primitive Church, immersion was undeniably the common mode of 
baptism. The utmost that can be said of sprinkling at that early period is that it was 
in case of necessity, permitted as an exception to a general rule. This fact is so well 
established that it is needless to adduce authorities in proof of it. 

The Subjects of Baptism in the Apostolic Churches, were those who repented 
of sin, and confessed their faith in Christ for salvation ; none else were admitted, 
hence, infant baptism was unknown amongst them, either by precept or example, 
nor have we any definition of the relation of infants to the Church, or any provision 
for their discipline. In itself baptism was the confession of reliance on Christ, 
having no reference to parental faith, or federal relationship. The infinite dif- 
ference between the Theocracy and the Christian Church, measured the wide 
stretch between circumcision and baptism. Admission into the first was by birth- 
right without choice, the subject being ' born of blood and of the will of man.' 
Men entered the second, by bowing the heart and will to Christ, by the personal 
abandonment of sin for his sake, and by personal choice of him as their Saviouj; 
Christ was a member of the Jewish nation, but when he reached manhood, he was 
baptized on his own volition as an obedient Son. No question of federal holiness 






NO RACE IN CHRIST JESUS. 4S 

was involved here. Mary had taken him to the .Temple to be circumcised, but she 
never brought him to John to be baptized. But why not, if infant baptism takes 
the place of circumcision ? and why did he carefully avoid making infant baptism an 
institute in his kingdom, when one sentence from his lips would have established it 
forever ? 

Singularly enough the baptism of believers is practiced by all Christians, who 
practice baptism at all, because Jesus positively commanded that it should be ; 
yet some who practice infant baptism do so because Christ did not command it, but 
was silent on the subject. One of our first scholars and historians says : 

' True, the New Testament contains no express command to baptize infants ; 
such a command would not agree with the free spirit of the Gospel. Nor was 
there any compulsory or general infant baptism before the union of Church and 
State. Constantine, the first Christian emperor, delayed his baptism till his 
death-bed (as many now delay their repentance) ; and even after Constantine 
there were examples of eminent teachers, as Gregory Nazianzen, Augustin, 
Chrysostom, who were not baptized in early manhood, although they had Christian 
mothers. But still less does the New Testament forbid infant baptism, as it might 
be expected to do in view of the universal custom of the Jews to admit their 
children by circumcision on the eighth day after birth, into the fellowship of the 
old covenant.' 19 

A guileless investigator of historic truth will naturally ask here, 1. If ' the 
free spirit of the Gospel' would not have agreed with an express command from 
Christ to baptize infants, how does their baptism without his commands agree 
with that ' free spirit ? ' 2. Gospel baptism was for ' all nations,' ' all the world,' 
without regard to Jew or Gentile as such, what then, had natural ' birth ' to do with 
the question, in any way? Jews and Gentiles were admitted to baptism on the 
same terms, and millions of Gentiles were baptized, but only a few thousand Jews. 
In fact, the baptized Churches refused to know men either as Jew or Gentile, 
because in Christ Jesus there is no race. The Gentiles had nothing to do with cir- 
cumcision, as the ordinance of a covenant in which they had never had and never 
were to have a part. Was baptism substituted for circumcision to accommodate 
them, when they had no natural interest in either ? The Jews needed no such 
change. Any one of them, old or young, male or female, could accept the 
Redeemer on choice, by passing out of the Old Covenant into the New with him 
through baptism, by simply asking the privilege. Infant baptism could not be 
a substitute for circumcision with the Gentiles, and the Jews could have both if 
they wished, as in the cases of Paul and Timothy. Then what had circumcision 
to do with the question anyway, when baptism affected only 'a new creature?' 
3. As to New Testament silence on the subject of infant baptism : Did the Apos- 
tolic Christians understand that whatever Jesus did not forbid they were in duty 
bound to incorporate into the Christian system ? Then, any rite, service or prac- 
tice, superstition or dogma whatever, might have been introduced, unless expressly 



46 DOES SILENCE ENJOIN DUTY? 

forbidden. This casts all the bulwarks of purity to the four winds, and is the 
essence of Romanism. "Where does the New Testament ' forbid ' infant com- 
munion, the elevation and adoration of the cup, the limit of its use to the clergy, 
the use of holy water, the priestly miter and dress, the sign of the cross, and the 
conduct of worship in Latin ; the use of salt, oil, honey and saliva in baptism, the 
baptism of bells, a college of cardinals, archbishops, auricular confession, the pope's 
infallibility, nay, the pope himself, with a thousand other mummeries ad nau- 
seam ? 

If it is a canon in Christianity that silence gives consent, and consent imposes 
duty, then it is not only our duty to baptize our children, whether the ' Christian 
mothers ' of Chrysostom and Augustine baptized theirs or not, but to do many other 
things which 'his holiness' curses us for not doing. Luther honestly said: 'It can- 
not be proved by the Sacred Scriptures that infant baptism was instituted by Christ, 
or begun by the first Christians after the Apostles.' So, when Carlstadt asked him : 
'"Where has Christ commanded us to elevate the host?' he answered, 'Where has 
he forbidden it ? ' As if this absurd answer rendered his act a whit the less a 
trifling with Christ's will in either case. The Constitution of the United States 
contains no express command to establish a monarchy and elect a king, ' still less ' 
does it '■forbid'' this; therefore any faction is at liberty to establish a kingdom 
and elect a sovereign ! Such work would probably be deemed ' treason' under our 
positive political institutions, but somehow the same silence affecting an institution 
of Christ is used to impel to superserviceable loyalty. 

Our Lord instructed his Apostles whom to baptize, and on what conditions, and 
they went no further. God commanded Abraham to circumcise ' his seed,' but he 
did not practice the rite upon other men's children, because he was not forbidden to 
do so. Baptism is met with in the New Testament, only in association with a cer- 
tain set of persons, sentiments and virtues. The baptized are characterized 
as 'elect,' 'saints,' 'disciples,' 'believers,' and their state of mind as that of 'faith,' 
'obedience,' 'remission of sin,' 'following after holiness,' and 'enduring hardness as 
good soldiers of Jesus Christ ;' names which cannot be given to, and things which 
cannot be said of, infants. 

Besides, the universal testimony of Church history says that they were not 
infants, but refers the whole question of infant baptism to empty inferential usage. 
Bunsen writes: 'It was utterly unknown in the early Church, not only down to 
the end of the second, but indeed to the middle of the third, century.' 20 Halin of 
Breslau testifies, that ' Neither in the Scriptures, nor during the first hundred and 
fifty years, is a sure example of infant baptism to be found ; and we must concede 
that the numerous opposers of it cannot be contradicted on Gospel ground.' 21 
Curcellaeus declares that, ' The baptism of infants, in the first centuries after Christ, 
was altogether unknown ; but in the third and fourth was allowed by some few. 
In the fifth and following ages it was generally received. The custom of baptizing 



SCHOLARS ON INFANT BAPTISM. 47 



infants did not begin before the third age after Christ was born. In the former 
ages no traces of it appear, and it was introduced without the command of Christ.' 22 
These testimonies might be multiplied at length, but only a few of great weight 
may be added. Dr. Jacob says : 

' Notwithstanding all that has been written by learned men upon this subject, 
it remains indisputable that infant baptism is not mentioned in the New Testament. 
No instance of it is recorded there ; no allusion is made to its effects ; no directions 
are given for its administration. However reasonably we may be convinced that 
we find in the Christian Scriptures " the fundamental idea from which infant bap- 
tism was afterward developed," and by which it may now be justified, it ought to 
be distinctly acknowledged that it is not an Apostolic ordinance. Like modern 
Episcopacy, it is an ecclesiastical institution legitimately deduced by Church author- 
ity from Apostolic principles ; but not Apostolic in its actual existence.' a 

The Bishop of Salisbury, recently deceased, says : 

' I most candidly and broadly state my conviction that there is not one 
passage nor one word in Scripture which directly proves it — not one word, the 
undeniable and logical power of which can be adduced to prove, in any way of fact, 
that in the Scripture age infants were baptized, or of the doctrine that they ought 
to be baptized. Nor, 1 believe, is there any such direct statement to be found in any 
writings of the Fathers of the Church before the latter end of the second century.' 

Beck has well summed up the constituency of an Apostolic Church thus : 

' They are baptized on the strength of personal faith, and pass from the old 
union with the world into the new associations. It is not baptism in itself, there- 
fore, which makes the Church, it is faith which qualifies both for faith and for the 
Church. This faith through which a man, of his own free-will, unites himself with 
God's salvation in Christ leads to baptism ; in which God unites himself to men for 
their salvation, for the forgiveness of their sins and the gift of the Spirit. And such 
baptized persons form the Church which is, therefore, styled " The multitude of 
them that believed." ' a 

Because, then, there is no authority for its practice from Christ or his Apostles, 
it falls to the ground. Of what weight is it that it be a tenet of ' deduction,' ' infer- 
ence,' ' Church authority ' or any other authority ; no matter what the pretense may 
be? In that case it is of purely human origin, manufactured for some end which 
the oracles of God did not contemplate, and is an act of empty will-worship, 
for which a man can give no solid account to Christ. The late Archbishop Hughes 
saw this point clearly, and said, in his ' Doctrinal Catechism : ' ' It does not appear 
from Scripture that even one infant was ever baptized ; therefore, Protestants 
should reject, on their own principle, infant baptism as an unscriptural usage.' But 
Professor Lange, of Jena, a weightier authority still, says : ' Would the Protestant 
Church fulfill and attain to its final destiny, the baptism of infants must of neces- 
sity be abolished. It has sunk down to a mere formality, without any religious 
meaning for the child ; and stands in direct contradiction to the fundamental doc- 
trines of the Reformers, on the advantage and use of the sacraments. It cannot 

from any point of view be justified by the Holy Scriptures.' 25 
5 



48 THE LORD'S SUPPER. 

There are three cases of household baptism mentioned in the New Testament, 
but the language of each record strongly sustains the above testimony. In the 
household of Lydia (Acts xvi, 40), those who were baptized with her are called 
'brethren,' and are 'exhorted' by Paul. In the jailer's household (Acts xvi, 
31-34), Paul ' spoke the word of the Lord to all that were in his house,' and they 
all ' believed in God and rejoiced.' And of the household of Stephanas (1 Cor. 
xvi, 15), which Paul baptized, he says that they ' addicted themselves to the ministry 
of the saints.' These are things which no infant can do, and prove that in eacli case 
they first heard the Gospel, and then were baptized upon their personal faith in the 
Lord Jesus. The second ordinance of the New Testament Churches was : 

The Lord's Supper. Its design was purely commemorative of Christ's death. 
Our Lord instituted it on the night before he was offered. He gave broken bread 
to his disciples, to represent his body as it should be mangled the next day by cruci- 
fixion ; then they each drank of the cup, which represented the shedding of his blood 
for the remission of sins. All his disciples present partook of these, and he made 
the commemoration perpetual, saying, ' This do in remembrance of me.' Here is 
the simple and beautiful ordinance about which his followers have wrangled for 
centuries in the most shameful manner. Human manipulations have made it an 
' awful mystery,' a ' dreadful sacrament,' or oath, and even a base idolatry, put in 
the place of Christ himself. With many who reject the Romish teaching of the 
Supper, an accretion of ideas and applications are associated with it, which amount 
to bald superstitions. "We hear devout and enlightened Protestants calling it ' the food 
of the soul,' a ' banquet of flesh and blood,' an ' eating of Christ's flesh and blood,' 
and the like nonsense. Some even pervert such passages as this by applying them 
to the Supper : ' If ye eat not my flesh and drink not my blood ye have not eternal 
life,' whereas Jesus spoke these words a year and a half before the Supper was estab- 
lished ; and if they bear upon it at all, they imply that eternal life itself can be had 
by taking bread and wine at the table. Others, in some way, which nobody knows 
any thing about, find a real presence of Christ at the Table, as they find him in no 
other religious observance, and so they insist upon it that the saints have fellowship 
with him and with each other there, such as they can have nowhere else, and in 
no other way. Hence, without intending it, contempt is brought upon the Bible 
teaching that Christ himself and not bread is the food of the soul, that the atone- 
ment brings salvation and not the act which commemorates it, in the use of bread 
and wine. Christ is the only bond of vital union, and the only test of fellowship 
amongst saints, and not a material ordinance. If fellowship amongst Christians is 
purchased by sitting with each other at the same table, their love is bought at a very 
light cost. Oneness with Christ himself, the brotherhood of regeneration by the 
Holy Spirit, mutual burden-bearing and mutual watch-care, formed the visible bond 
of fellowship in the Apostolic Churches. This sort of unity cost them something, it 
was not a vaporing sentiment, and was worth all that it cost. There is not a case in 



JESUS ONLY IS THE BOND OF UNION. 49 

ecclesiastical history where the Supper has held any single congregation together for 
a day. Churches of all names who celebrate it constantly, live in open contention year 
by year. The love of Judas for John was cramped into a close corner when they sat 
at the same table, and ate the sop from the same dish. If Christians are not one 
on a much higher plane than that of eating and drinking the Supper with each 
other, their true unity is a hopeless business. In fact, as if to prove the perfect 
emptiness of this pretension, in some Protestant communions, the Supper itself has 
been the subject of hot dispute, the chief bone of contention from century to cent- 
ury. The greatest bitterness has been indulged, and anathemas have been bandied 
about, pro and con, with a freedom which has marked no other form of discussion, 
and by men, too, who regularly meet at the same table. 

About a quarter of a century after Christ's death, the Corinthian Church had 
corrupted the Supper by the introduction of startling abuses. 1 Cor. xi. They 
associated the love-feast therewith, and indulged in gluttony and drunkenness. 
Christ corrected these abuses by a new revelation through Paul, and gave a second 
definition of the design of the Supper, in exposition of the first. ' As often as ye 
eat this bread and drink this cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death till he come.' Paul 
' received of the Lord,' that he intended the Supper as a memorial, preaching 
institution, whereby the redeemed Church, known as the 'Ye' meeting in 'one 
place,' preached Christ's death. The Primitive Churches, then, threw no super- 
stitious mystery about it, ascribed to it no semi-saving efficacy, accompanied it with 
no popish mortification, self-humiliations, super-solemnities, distempered enchant- 
ments, or pious legerdemain. To them it was a 'feast' of artless thanksgiving, 
kept with the ' leaven of sincerity and truth,' for the preaching of a sacrificial 
Redeemer. The bread and wine were common, like any other bread and wine, and 
Christ was present with them by his Spirit as in prayer, praise, and other acts of 
worship, no more sacredly and no less. The converts who had been baptized met 
together on ' the first day of the week,' and Justin Martyr, A. D. 150, says : ' It is 
not lawful for any to partake, but such as believe the things that are taught by us 
to be true, and have been baptized.' There were no such things as ' different denom- 
inations ' amongst them. Some congregations had factions amongst them, which are 
called ' sects,' but no sect of Churches was distinguished from other sects of Churches 
by a different order of faith and practice. In this respect they walked under the 
same rule, were all immersed believers, and were in perfect accord in their Gospel 
practice. When men are willing to return to the Gospel order of regeneration and 
baptism, their own obedience to Christ Jesus will remove all controversy on these 
subjects by restoring things to the Gospel status ; and then there must of necessity 
be again: 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism,' and one Table. But until then there 
never can be ; and what is more, there never ought to be, except on this Apostolic 
Church principle. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE BAPTIST COPY OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCHES. 

FROM the fall of Jerusalem, A. D. TO, to the end of the century, great 
changes occurred in the Roman Empire, some of which seriously affected 
the Christian Churches. Domitian occupied the throne from 81 to 96, and like all 
tyrants, he was weak, cruel, despotic. He exhausted the finances of the empire by 
lavish expenditures, and laid a heavy tax upon the Jews. He also banished literary 
men and philosophers from Rome, and persecuted the Christians as 'Atheists,' 
because they worshiped an unseen God, without visible representation, figure, 
symbol, image or altar. Besides this, the emperor claimed divine worship for 
himself, as much as had Caligula before him. He every-where polluted the 
temples with his statues, and we are told that endless sacrifices were offered at his 
altars. His decrees began with the words : ' Dominus et Dcus noster ' (our Lord 
and God) commands this and that, and whoever spoke of him otherwise was sub- 
ject to the charge of treason. Some Jews, to evade the tax, denied their nationality, 
and as the Christians were classed with Jews, strict examination was made of their 
persons and rites. Because they refused to pay him the profane worship which he 
demanded, he was inflamed with rage. The doctrine of the second advent of Christ 
was confused with the Jewish belief in a coining Messiah, and this kept him on the 
alert with suspicion, lest a political rival should make him trouble. Hence, great 
numbers of Christians suffered the confiscation of their goods, others were put to 
death or exiled, and the ' gloomy atheists ' who escaped, were treated by society as 
impious persons. Happily, his wrath was launched against them late in his reign, or 
the persecution would have reached a level of severity with that of Nero. His 
successor, Nerva, A. D. 96-98, was more just and humane, revoked the edict of 
Domitian, recalled the "banished from the mines and the Islands of the Mediter- 
ranean, and in fact, forbade the further persecution of Jews or Christians. Then, 
Christianity came near to the Caesars and even reached the royal family. Flavius 
Clement was cousin to Domitian, high in office and in the regard of the people ; 
and there seems to be good evidence that he and his wife, Domatelli, became Chris- 
tians, with others in the highest ranks of society. 

At the close of the First Century, Christianity stands in its ideal beauty, fresh 
from Christ, full of new life given by the Holy Spirit, and in the pure mold which 
inspired Apostles had formed, without one defect from the touch of human govern- 
ments. It looked like a frail craft tossed on a stormy sea, though freighted with all 



IS THE MODEL LOST? SI 

the wealth of heaven. It was the first beam from the Morning Star, making its 
way out of infinite solitudes as fleetly and softly as the Dove of Jordan. Jesus had 
come in the Augustan Age, had uttered every word which man needed to hear, and 
finished every deed needed for his salvation. Yet, his new scepter, swayed over 
the human spirit, was never to be broken. He came to make life higher, poetry 
broader, history brighter, and religion sublimer ; an art, which should lift the vulgar 
into the ideal, and perfect praise out of low human passions. When the heavens 
closed on our ascended Lord, his Apostles went forth to the great uplifting movement 
amongst slaves, and the poorest of the common people. By a natural but sure 
process they laid its foundations in their confidence, toil and blood, and built from 
this basis to the top-stone of society. The century opened with the cries of the 
Bethlehem Babe, and closed with the Man of Sorrows on his throne, in the heaven 
of heavens. To the far East he had become the Day-spring, to the far West the 
Rising Sun. Warlike people and pastoral, polite and barbarian, had begun to feel 
his power, from Borne to the far-off shores of the Empire, which were washed by 
every sea. Those Apostles who had stood with him on the mountain in Galilee, had 
done their work, and were now enthroned with him. Their names, yet unrecorded 
in the annals of the Empire, were written in the Lamb's Book of Life forever. 

Having thus found the model of the New Testament Church, the question is 
forced upon us : Whether or not this pattern is retained in any of the Churches 
of the present day ? Without casting ungenerous reflections upon any Christian 
body whatever, it may ue said that as to substance and form, the most accurate 
resemblance to this picture of the Apostolic Churches, is now found in the Baptist 
Churches of Europe and America. Dr. Duncan reports : ' That when Gesenius, the 
great German Hebraist and Biblical critic, first learned what Baptist Churches were, 
he exclaimed : ' How exactly like the Primitive Churches ! ' 1 So Ypeig, late Pro- 
fessor of Theology in the University of Groningen, and Dermont, Chaplain to the 
King of Holland, who, together, prepared a History of the Netherlands Reformed 
Church for that government, have the same principles in view when they say : 

' We have now seen that the Baptists who in former times were called Ana- 
baptists, and at a later period Mennonites, were originally Waldenses, who, in the 
history of the Church, even from the most ancient times, have received such a well- 
deserved homage. On this account the Baptists may be considered, as of old, the 
only religious community which has continued from the times of the Apostles ; as a 
Christian Society which has kept pure through all ages the evangelical doctrines of 
religion. The uncorrupted inward and outward condition of the Baptist community 
affords proof of the truth contested by the Romish Church, of the great necessity 
of a reformation of religion such as that which took place in the sixteenth century, 
and also a refutation of the erroneous notion of the Roman Catholics that their 
denomination is the most ancient.' 2 

The late Dr. Oncken assured the writer that in forming a new Church at 
Hamburg, A. D. 1834, the constituent members first resolved that they would shut 
themselves up entirely to the Apostolic model, as found in the New Testament. 



52 FOUNDATION DOCTRINES STATED. 

They, therefore, devoted themselves for some time to prayer and the exclusive study 
of that Book as an inspired Church Manual ; and on comparing the result, to their 
surprise, they found themselves compelled to form a Church in accord with the 
Baptist Churches in England and America. Yet, there is nothing strange in this ; 
the New Testament is ever the same, and it is but natural that when the devout 
mind is left free from all standards but this, with the determination to follow 
it in the most simple-hearted manner, it should produce the same stamp of New 
Testament Churches every-where and always. 

In what, then, do the Baptist Churches of to-day differ from other ecclesiastical 
bodies ? Only in retaining certain peculiarities of the New Testament Churches 
which others have laid aside. And in what do Baptist peculiarities consist ? The 
fundamental difference between them and others lies much deeper than the question 
of Baptism, either as regards the act itself or its subjects. The distinction is much 
broader, deeper and more radical. There was no need for serious protest against 
the Romish hierarchy, for example, on the subject of immersion, down to the thir- 
teenth century, for that was her settled custom to that time ; while it is still 
the custom of the Greek Church. The living and underlying principles of 
Baptist Churches, relate to the sovereign and absolute headship of Christ in his 
Churches ; to the exclusive authority of the Scriptures, as containing his law for their 
direction in all things ; to the supernatural regeneration of each Christian forming 
the Churches ; and to the liberty and responsibility to God, of each individual con- 
science. Here we find the great staple of Baptist life and history, and all other 
questions are subordinate, growing out of these. Aside from these peculiarities, 
Baptists stand side by side with many denominations of Christians in the present age, 
and heartily hail the present state of divinity, as set forth in the clear and vigorous 
teachings of the Reformed Churches. These are our precious treasure, in common 
with the holy inheritance of other God-fearing men, and we cling to them with 
gratitude, as in the main, the embodiment of New Testament truth. 

It must ever be kept in mind, that the whole body of Baptists have nev«r put 
forth an authorized expression of their principles and practices in the form of a 
creed. Some few of their Churches have never made a formal declaration of their 
faith aside from the Bible ; while in the main, each separate Church expresses what 
it thinks the Scriptures require of it as a Church, in a ' Declaration of Faith.' There 
is a substantial agreement in the entire fraternity of our Churches, which it is not 
difficult to set forth. In common with other orthodox Christians, so called, we believe 
the doctrines of the Divine Unity and Trinity ; of Christ's incarnation and proper 
Deity ; of man's fall and helplessness, and his redemption by the vicarious sacrifice 
of our Lord Jesus Christ ; of the Personality and Deity of the Holy Spirit, and his 
plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures ; of free justification by Christ's mediato- 
rial work; of sanctification by the inwrought agency of the Holy Spirit; of holy 
living on earth after God's commandments ; of a future resurrection of the body, 



/ 



NO AUTHORITATIVE GREEDS. S3 

and the day of judgment ; and of a state of eternal rewards and punishments in 
another world. Of course, as in all other bodies of Christians, controversies exist 
amongst ourselves touching the various modifications of these doctrines ; enough, at 
least, to show that there is and must be diversity of view, where the divine right of 
interpretation is exercised amongst thoughtful men. The distinguishing principles 
of Baptists, then, may be stated thus : 

I. That the Inspired Scriptures contain the full and supreme authority 
oe Christ in all that relates to Christian faith and practice, whether in 
doctrine, ordinance, the ordering of a holy life, or in the administering 
of Church government. These alone must be followed ; and all legislation, canon, 
creed or decree, springing from tradition, ecclesiastical authority, or usage of 
antiquity, not enjoined in the Scriptures, is to be resisted and rejected, from what- 
ever source it may spring, either inside the local Church or outside, as intolerable in 
the faith and practice of the Churches. We find a wide difference between a 
simple confession or declaration of what the Bible teaches, and an authoritative 
creed. A creed is an imperative test which must be enforced in the interests of 
absolute uniformity ; and this is the exact position of Rome. She reasons thus : 
'Divine truth is one; therefore, true believers cannot differ in their subscription to 
the truth. But they do differ; therefore, in difference there is heresy. Now, 
heresy must be kept out of the Church ; therefore, make a creed to keep it out. 
Who, then, has the sole right to make a creed ? Of course, only the Church.' 
Thus, the Bible is interpreted by creed-making, and its teachings to the individual 
man are vetoed, because he is compelled to accept the interpretation in the creed. 
Creeds tell men what they shall find in the Bible if they consult it, and if they find 
not that, they shall find nothing. For the time being, what the majority condemns 
is heresy, and the heretical minority must be punished until they become the 
majority. Yet, no creed can be made a full and perfect unity ; nothing can be that 
unity but the Divine Testimony, and that must be personally consulted, man by 
man. He must be bold, indeed, who tries to unify God's word by drawing up a 
creed, either to supplement it or push it aside. God crystallized his own Oracles as 
a perfect and changeless creed forever ; and when man takes it into his head that he 
can improve its formulation, he betrays his conceit by perpetually giving us new 
creeds, in which he appeals to the Bible for their support, provided, that we will 
read the Sacred Text through his colored glass. But because the Bible has never 
been outgrown as the one standard, and cannot be creedified in brief; the Baptist 
holds the substitution of any authoritative creed as the first step in apostasy. 
Another distinctive principle with Baptists is : 

II. That a Christian. Church must be made up only of persons who are 

MORALLY REGENERATED ; AND THAT IT IS NOT A SIMPLE VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATION, BUT 
A BODY OF MEN CALLED OUT OF THE WORLD ABOUT THEM, BY CHRIST'S SPECIAL 

authority, to be a people peculiar to himself. The regeneration of each man 



54 REGENERATION BY THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

in Christ's Church must be wrought by the Holy Spirit, he must be baptized upon 
his own choice, and covenant to maintain the order of the Gospel in its purity. 
We hold that the fundamental decession from Apostolic teaching, which has 
created scandal, shame, and division amongst Christians, lodges in that ritualistic 
grace which has scorned a soul-renovation wrought by the Spirit of God, as a piece 
of fanaticism, and has put this fable in the place of the Spirit's saving work. This 
legerdemain has been foisted in under that shadowy figment called catholicity, and 
outward ordinances have been made the channel of saving efficacy in place of ' a 
new creature in Christ Jesus.' With us spiritual regeneration is the moot-point 
against all heresies, for on this all cognate points have turned in every cent- 
ury. Jorg says of Dr. Lange, that he declared publicly in 1854: 'It was not 
opposition to infant baptism, but Church order and fellowship that is the culmi- 
nating essence of all Baptists, in the past and present.' 3 Sacramental salvation has 
been the seed from which every distortion of Apostolic Christianity has sprung. 
Baptists have stood, and still stand, in stout and holy protest against the abominable 
doctrine that baptism and the Lord's Supper are saving institutions ; and they 
demand that before any man shall put his hand to either of these, he shall be reno- 
vated by the Spirit of God, through faith in his Son, and then he shall be entitled 
to them because he is regenerate, his regeneration having made this both his duty 
and privilege. 

This radical principle compels them to reject infant baptism, because in the 
nature of the case the infant cannot be a witness to Christ, as the salt of the earth 
and the light of the world. Baptism puts the infant into a most questionable posi- 
tion. It cannot bring him into any covenanted relation to Christ which did not 
exist before. Unbaptized, he was not a member of Christ's Church at all, and his 
baptism does not so make him a member thereof, as to put him under its responsi- 
bilities, or call him to its duties, or make him answerable to its discipline, or require 
him to honor its brotherhood. Though baptized, he is not allowed to come to the 
Lord's Table, because he cannot 'discern the Lord's body;' but he was compelled to 
be baptized, whether he could discern the Lord's baptism or not. If he had died 
unbaptized, he would have been numbered amongst the saints in heaven without 
repentance, faith or any other religious act ; but if he grows up to manhood after 
his baptism, he must be converted before he is fitted even for the Church on earth. 
What, then, has his baptism done for him either in this world or that which is to 
come ? No satisfactory and logical answer can be given to this question but that 
given by the pope, namely : That his baptism is his regeneration de facto. It 
admits him into the Church on earth with all its privileges so long as he lives ; and 
it delivers him from a horrible limbics infantum, if he dies in infancy, and secures 
salvation for him, die when he may. The rejection of infant baptism by Baptists is 
not a mere whim or narrow prejudice, but in their judgment this institution vitiates 
the purity of Christ's Church, as is seen in all the State Churches of Europe, where 



CHURCH RESPONSIBILITIES. 55 

the law makes the whole population members of the Church through this rite. It 
attaches an importance to baptism which does not belong to it, and so perverts the 
design of the Gospel ordinance, by exalting it entirely above its proper place ; and 
it places the innocent child in a nondescript position to which he is a stranger in the 
Gospel ; thus there can be no natural place for it in the Church of Christ. The 
Very object of a Gospel Church is the promotion of mutual growth in truth, purity, 
and love ; the advancement of Christ's cause on earth, and the salvation of the 
Christless ; to none of which ends a babe can contribute. Then, as Baptist 
Churches are pure democracies, they cannot deprive a child of the right to choose 
Christ for himself, for in them all are equal ; each member having his own vote in 
all that concerns their well-being, a responsibility which a child cannot assume. 
Thus we consider that a Church made up of unregenerate members takes the second 
step in apostasy. One more distinctive principle of Baptists is : 

III. That they maintain Baptism and the Lord's Suppek after the 
Apostolic appointment both as it regards their relations to themselves as 
ordinances, and to other great Gospel TEACHINGS. We use neither of them 
as a charm, or spiritual amulet to serve the ends of superstition in the suppo- 
sition that the first can wash away sin, or that the other exerts any moral efficacy 
on the soul. All the waters of the sea cannot wash away a moral stain from man, 
nor can all the bread and wine brought from the harvest-fields and vineyards di 
earth strengthen his immortal soul. We think that the Supper should only be cele- 
brated when and where the purpose of its celebration can be properly served. Hence, 
we take the elements only when the local Church is met 'in one place' as a body, 
and shun the popish custom of carrying them to the room of the sick, as if they 
contained salvation, or some magical influence. Christ personally is the healing 
medicine of the afflicted Christian, and not bread and wine. We, therefore, hold 
that every idea of sacramental grace is a piece of superstition, to be sacredly dis- 
carded. Sacramentarianism is the third step in apostasy. The last distinctive prin- 
ciple of Baptists is: 

IV. That they earnestly oppose all connection of the Church with the 
State, and all distinctions made by the State amongst its citizens, on the 
ground of religion. They protest that the State has nothing to do with the con- 
trol of religion ; but that it must give unrestricted religious freedom to all, as their 
sacred and natural right in the exercise of a free conscience. All true soul-liberty 
arises in that purity of conscience, which, unbound itself, leaves all other con- 
sciences free. Our idea is, that as the untrammeled conscience is the inalienable 
right of man, he can be made accountable only to God for its exercise. Hence, 
when any human power proscribes or pei-secutes man, by putting him under pains 
or penalties for following his convictions of duty in obeying God, such inter- 
ference is an usurpation. When a man follows these convictions, he is entitled to 
the honest respect and love of all ; and he is bound to extend the same rights to 



56 PERSECUTION FOB RELIGION, WICKED. 

others which he claims for himself. Nay, fidelity to manhood and to God requires 
us to contend, and if need be to suffer, for this, as the right of others, and to 
treat those who differ from us in religious opinion and practice, with the respect and 
love which sacredly honors our own immunities. This holy principle lays the ax 
at the root of all legal proscription and persecution. The persecution of one Christian 
by another is the coolest wickedness that can be perpetrated, because it hides under 
the color of law ; and when so-called Christian States inflict martyrdom, they simply 
inflict cold-blooded murder. Men who kill others against law, generally do so 
under the impulses of irregular passion. But those who legally put men to death 
because they cannot conform to their religion, lift up red hands as their only right- 
ful claim to Christian discipleship ; for they have methodized homicide under the 
pretense of a holy regularity. They make piety toward God preside with prayers 
at the blood-shedding of redeemed men. This State-murder has been steadily dealt 
out to Baptists by every dominant sect of religion, with scarcely an exception, after 
allying itself Avith the State ; while our people have insisted on their right to the 
free exercise of their own faith, and to the freedom of all other men to serve God 
on their own volition, without dictation from any man. 

According to the estimate of Sharon Turner there were at the close of the first 
century already about 500,000 Christians in the world, and the Scriptures show 
that they cherished the sacred principles here set forth. These doctrines are still 
as fresh as ever, and are as soundly reproduced in the Baptists of the nineteenth 
century as in those of the first. It will now be our business to show how and where 
they have lived in the intervening centuries, when not an Apostle was left to 
expound or defend them, but only the "Word of God in which they abide, and must 
live forever. Yet, the question is constantly arising why all Christians do not 
earnestly strive to go back to the pattern of the Apostolic Churches ? Beck force- 
fully answers this inquiry thus : 

' It is quietly assumed that the original arrangements of the Church were only 
possible at that time, and that in later ages they have become impracticable and 
unsuitable. People have got into the habit of regarding this Scriptural pattern as 
an ideal that cannot be carried out in practice. But why can we not realize it ? Is 
the cause to be found in the fanatical character of the first period of Christianity, or 
does it lie in the fact, that the latter progress has proved untrue to the ideal to 
which the First Age remained true? The latter is the case. The Scriptural 
Church constitution takes for granted, a society which grows and develops from 
within by the free faith of those who compose it, and which separates itself from 
the rest of the community. If doctrine and sacrament must be founded on the 
divine word, in order to represent and promote true Christianity, this is no less 
essential also for the constitution and discipline of the Church. The two things 
cannot be separated, as the history of the great Churches shows, without entailing 
increasing evil and injury on the Church. The union between doctrine and consti- 
tution must take place in accordance with what the divine word represents to have 
been the rule and the practice from the beginning. This is the only right way to 
improvement.' 4 



POST-APOSTOLIC TIMES. 



CHAPTER I. 

SECOND CENTURY AND ONWARD. 

IT id estimated that at the opening of this century from two to three hundred 
Churches had been gathered, some of them thousands of miles apart. Each 
of these was left to follow the New Testament as its only guide ; and Eusebius 
says that they ' vied with each other in the preaching of Christ and in the dis- 
tribution of the Scriptures.' All the 2sew Testament books were collected by 




AXCIEXT CHURCH EDIFICE IH CORNTVALL. 

about A. D. 150, and soon after that translations abounded. The Syriac, called the 
Peshito (literal), for its fidelity, was rendered into the common language of Pales- 
tine, and Miehaelis pronounces it ' the very best translation of the Xew Testament 
that I have ever read.' It throws a strong light upon the act of baptism in that age 
— the word which expresses it is amad. The Syrian lexicons define it by 'immerse.' 
According to Bernstein, 'he was dipped, immersed ; he dipped or plunged himself 
into something.' The various translations were read in the Christian assemblies, 



58 



DOCTRINES DISCUSSED. 



and all questions in them were settled by appeals to the sacred books. These 
Churches were filled with missionary zeal, for in A. D. 180 the Gospel was found 
in all the provinces of the Roman Empire, from Britain to Tigris, and from the 
Danube to the Libyan Desert. Two young Christian men were taken captives into 
India and established Churches there, and a young woman brought the King and 
Queen of the Iberians to Christ, and through them the nation. 

After the first blaze of enthusiasm, however, corruption began to creep into 
the Churches, first by useless forms, such as the sign of the cross in baptism, and 
then the making of baptism a channel of regeneration. Christians began to call it 

a 'seal,' as if it bound men to Christ, and the doc- 
trine of superhuman renovation of the soul retired 
somewhat to the background. It is true that some 
went to the other extreme and rejected baptism in 
water altogether, as Quintilla at Carthage, but 
others insisted that no person could be saved who 
died without baptism, whatever their age or faith 
might be. Tertullian resisted both these doctrines 
in the first work which was written on baptism, 
and he also resisted the innovation of infant bap- 
tism. The doctrine of soul liberty was subjected to 
a serious test in this century, as paganism became 
more fierce and fanatical. The Christians obeyed 
the laws of the empire in all things excepting when they clashed with the rights of 
conscience. When the proconsul reasoned with Achatius that he who lives under 
the laws should love the princes, he demanded : ' By whom is the Emperor more 
loved than by Christians 1 ' ' Good,' rejoined 
the governor ; ' prove your obedience by sacri- 
ficing to his honor.' 'Kay,' said the martyr, 
' I pray for the Emperor. But a sacrifice, 
neither he should require nor me pay. Who 
can offer divine honor to a man ? ' The mon- 
arch ranked as the chief deity of the state, but 
the Christians refused to serve any god by state 
command. While they did not revolt against 
other laws, they would offer no incense on the 
altars of any idol, and they were swept from 
the earth in nameless thousands through ten 
barbarous persecutions. Such bloodshed had 
never been known. Christians were plundered, 
dragged from dens and crypts. They were 
torn with hot irons, tossed by wild bidls, thrown 




ANCIENT STONE FONT IN CORNWALL. 




NINTH CENTURY FRESCO. 



EARLY CHRISTIAN MARTYRS. 



59 



to ravenous beasts in the arena, and martyred by the thousand in all sorts of 
horrors. 

The remarkable case of Blandina is on record. She was made the sport of 
lions in A. D. 179. She was a slave of fifteen years of age, who was put to tor- 
ture that her mistress might be implicated. Though naked from morning till night 




CHRISTIANS GIVEN TO THE LIONS. 



her constancy vanquished the patience of her tormentors, her only answer being : 
' I am a Christian.' Then, to frighten her fellow-confessors, they took her into 
the circus and suspended her on a cross within reach of the wild beasts. A lion 
was let loose upon the poor child and the multitude howled for her life, but not a 



60 IMMERSION OR POURING. 

quiver passed over her frame. She smiled like a queen and looked into its mouth, 
and the monster did not touch her. Her intrepid spirit showed how Jesus could 
lift a worm of the empire to the highest page in the history of Home. She was 
first taken back from her cross to her dungeon, and then removed again into the 
arena for execution. Yet she flinched not more than did the angel in Gethsemane 
before the swords and staves of the Passover mob. She was first scourged, then 
scorched in a hot chair, and last of all was tossed madly by a furious bull. Even 
then a sharp sword was needful to take the last throb of life, when her body was 
burned to ashes and cast into the Rhone at Lyons. Tertullian said of these post- 
apostolic Baptists : ' Religion forbids to constrain any to be religious ; she would 
have consent and not constraint. Man has the natural right to worship what he 
thinks best. . . . Give, therefore, your money to Caesar and yourselves to God. If 
all is Ceesar's, what will remain for God ? ' 

In the third century the Emperors were more lenient toward the Christians. 
Many of the laws against them were relaxed for a time, until the persecution of 
Decius aimed at their entire destruction, and great numbers denied the faith, while 
others suffered firmly. A large declension forced upon the attention of Montanus 
the need of severe discipline on the ' lapsed.' Under him the new sect of Mon- 
tanists sprang up — a people who labored earnestly to restore the spirituality of the 
Churches, and as they insisted that men should not flee from persecution, so they 
also demanded that the lapsed should be reimmersed, for which cause only they 
were called 'Anabaptists.' Their main doctrine was that the Churches should be 
composed of purely regenerate persons only, and should stand without any affilia- 
tion with the state. Through their instrumentality many returned to the apostolic 
ideal. They had no controversy with the Catholics on trine immersion, for this 
was practiced by both parties ; nor had infant baptism yet established itself as a 
general custom; it was but just beginning to appear, and could hardly be called a 
matter in controversy. 

The Novatians arose about A. D. 281, and ISTovatian is the first recorded in- 
stance of departure from immersion in baptism. He was sick, as was supposed, 
unto death, and could not be three times immersed, according to custom ; yet some- 
thing must be done, and in a hurry, to save his soul. So, while stretched on his 
bed, water was poured all around his person, including his whole body in an outline ; 
then water was poured all over his body till he was drenched, making profusion 
as nearly an immersion as possible. If he died this was to stand for baptism, but if 
he lived his baptism was to be accounted defective. Cornelius, the Bishop of Rome 
at that time, was so obstinate an immersionist that he wrote to Eabius, the Bishop 
of Antioch, called his baptism in question, and Chrysostom gave his reasons at 
length for doubting the salvation of men who received such baptism. The Nova- 
tians were called ' Puritans,' because of the strict discipline which they enforced 
in their Churches, and because they reimmersed the lapsed and those who came to 



FIRST BAPTISM OF INFANTS. 



them from corrupt Churches. They were also called "Anabaptists." Cyprian 
struck a heavy blow at Congregationalism in this century by putting forth the high 
claims of episcopacy as of divine right, and episcopal prerogatives began to run high, 
creating an order of churchism which was unknown before. Infant baptism also 
began to assert itself more openly and firmly. In Africa infants had been sacri- 
ficed to the gods, and Fidus, a country pastor, wrote to Cyprian, at Carthage, asking 
whether new-born babes 



might not be baptized in 
order to save them, wheth- 
er they were offered to the 
idols or not. The propo- 
sition startled him, and he 
dared not give a decision 
in such a serious case on 
his own judgment ; but, 
A. D. 252, he consulted 




COXSTAXT1XE THE GREAT. 



sixty-six pastors on this new question, who decided that infants of eight days old 
migld be baptized ; but they were careful not to insist that they must be. That 
absurdity was reserved for a later age. North Africa also gave birth to the ridicu- 
lous custom of forcing the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper down the throats 
of immersed infants — a practice which, Bingham says, continues down to our times 
amongst the Greeks, Nestorians, Armenians, and Maronites, and surely this ordinance 
is as necessary to the salvation of the child as the other, both of them being a solemn 
farce in the case of a babe. In the third century there began a strong contest be- 
tween tradition and the supreme authority of Scripture, which has continued to 
rage down to our day. This was followed by the desolating influences of gnosti- 
cism, which almost pushed aside the letter of Scripture entirely. Then came the 
politico-ecclesiasticism under Constantine — a dangerous evil from which Christian- 
ity has not fully recovered. 

The Donatist agitation arose in North Africa A. D. 311, and spread with amaz- 
ing vigor. In the general, it represented the broad principle of the Montanists and 
the Novatians — that the true Church of Christ is the assembly of truly pious people 
only, and admits of no merely nominal membership. They shook off the Catholic 
notion that unity is of more consequence than purity, by making soul-life a prime 
qualification for membership in a Gospel Church. Guy de Bres said they held that 
baptized infants ought to be baptized again as adults, and Augustine's letters imply 
as much. Their opposition to the corruptions of Christianity brought upon them 
every conceivable form of suffering, but they made the whole world their debtors ; 
for the assumptions of the Emperors and the ambitions of the clergy had sunk the 
rights of the Christian people, long before the close of the fifth century. 

The Paulicians have generally been confounded with the Manichseans, chiefly 



62 



EARLY CHRISTIAN SECTS. 



because Pliotius and Siculus have sent down their history in a tide of acrid invec- 
tive. In reality, there was little in common between these sects ; in fact, the Pauli- 
cians repelled the charge that they followed Manes with great spirit, as Gibbon 
shows. They circulated the Scriptures freely, read them publicly, believed in 
the light of the spirit in believers, denied baptism in water, and were much 
more like the Quakers than they were like the Baptists. Sender accords them 
more correct ideas of godliness, worship, and Christian governments than the Catho- 
lics of their times, and they passed through the bitterest persecution. 

The Cathaki, or pure, have been the subjects of much confusion in ecclesias- 
tical history, many and widely differing sects having been classed together under that 
general name, although the various sects grouped here are too numerous to mention. 
The Bogomiles were a branch of the Cathari, whom Herzoff thinks an offshoot from 




A FANATICAL MONK PREACHING. 

the Paulicians, taking their rise in the tenth century, probably in Bulgaria, whence 
they spread into Southern France, the Netherlands, and Flanders. Another branch 
is found in the Albigenses, who were first known as the Publicani, and who arose 
in Southern France in the early part of the eleventh century. They rejected the 
Romish Church, esteeming the New Testament above all its ceremonies and tradi- 
tions. They were pure in their lives, exalted celibacy, took no oaths, and refused 
to believe in baptismal regeneration. Their increase was so rapid that four Catholic 
Councils condemned them, and, A. D. 1180, Cardinal Henry undertook to extirpate 
them by the sword. One war upon them followed another, until, in the middle of 
the thirteenth century, they were nearly swept out of existence, making their history 
of about a century the brightest and bloodiest in the annals of persecution. The 
Cathari furnished a purely Baptist body in Cologne and Bonn, in 1146. Evervine 



PETltOBllUSIAN PRINCIPLES. 



63 



sought aid of Bernard in their suppression. They professed to be the true Church, 
because they followed Christ and his Apostles, charging their persecutors with being 
false apostles, and with adulterating the word of God. Evervine says : ' They do 
not hold the baptism of infants, alleging that passage of the Gospel, " He that believ- 
eth and is baptized shall be saved." ; They called all Church observances which 
Christ had not established superstitious, they denied purgatory and the intercession 
of saints. Bernard is especially bitter against them because they denied infant bap- 
tism. In 1163 several of them were burnt at the stake, as 'monsters,' and the monk, 
Canon Echbert, preached thirteen sermons against them to fasten upon them the 
brand of heresy. Gieseler shows that they not only denounced infant baptism, but 
insisted that baptism should be confined to believers. Echbert says that ' They 
are armed with the words of the Holy Scripture, which in any way seem to favor their 
sentiments, and with these know how to defend their sins.' 




BRESCIA. 



Another thoroughly Baptist sect of the Cathari were known as the Peteobrusians, 
from Peter of Bruis. He seized the entire Biblical presentation of baptism, forcing 
it home upon the conscience and life, without any Catholic or catharistic nonsense, 
and from A. D. 1104; devoted his life to the restoration of Gospel Christianity, hold- 
ing that no person can become a member of Christ's flock but one who is regener- 
ated by the Spirit of God, and is immersed on his faith in Christ. Dr. Wall writes : 
' I take this Peter Bruis (or Bruce, perhaps, his name was) and Henry to be the first 
anti-pedobaptist preachers that ever set up a Church or society of men, holding that 
opinion against infant baptism, and rebaptizing such as had been baptized in infancy.' 
Henry had been a monk of Clngny and had embraced Peter's principles, making 
common cause with him, as Melancthon did with Luther, or Whitefield with Wesley. 
He was a man of letters, and Meander says that ' He had all the attributes to deeply 

impress the people, great dignity of personal appearance, a fiery eye, a thundering 
6 



64 



AENOLD OF BRESCIA. 



voice, a lively step, a speech that rushed forth impetuously as it flowed from his 
heart, and Bible passages were always at hand to support his addresses.' This lithe 
young Baptist apostle drew near to the city of Mans, in 1116, and at its gates sent 
two of his disciples to preach to its citizens. Then Henry himself entered, the 
Bishop being about to start for Rome. The whole city received him with enthusi- 
asm, so that when the Bishop returned the people refused to accept his benedic- 
tion. This enraged the priesthood, and Henry was obliged to leave for Poitiers. 
When the Alpine valleys were swarming with his followers, Pope Eugenius deter- 
mined to suppress him and his work. He was brought before the Council of Rheims 
in 1118 and condemned as a heretic to perpetual confinement, and soon died in a 
neighboring monastery. 

Arnold of Brescia was born about 1105. He was an educated monk and a dis- 
ciple of Abelard. He possessed great fervor, purity, and severity, with a remarkable 
flow of eloquence. His preaching filled Lombardy with resistance to the preten- 
sions of the priesthood. He was as bold and pure a republican as Garibaldi in 
modern times, insisting on the destruction of the Pope's temporal power and the re- 
establishment of the Roman commonwealth, while the Church should return to the 

New Testament standard. The 
Council of Lateran banished Ar- 
nold in 1139, and he fled to Zur- 
ich, where for a time he preached 
his doctrines, till a price was put 
upon his head. At last he deter- 
mined to attack Rome openly, 
and opened his work in the streets 
of Rome. The people arose in 
insurrection. After a desperate 
-S 1 contest against three several 
Popes, a constitution was framed 
and submitted to Adrian IV. for 
his approval. The Pope fled for 
his life, and a new government, 
which abolished his temporal pow- 
er, was established, for about ten 
years. But, while Arnold was 
conservative, the people became 
violent, Rome was put under in- 
terdict, the Emperor Barbarossa marched against it with a large army, and the daring 
reformer was obliged to surrender. In 1155 he was hanged, his body burned to 
ashes, and his dust was thrown into the Tiber. But the republicanism which he 
preached controls Italy to-day, touching the doctrine of soul-liberty. Down to 1861 




ARNOLD OP BRESCTA. 




MONl'JIEXTO AD AKXALDO UA BRESCIA. 



WICKLIFF AND TATTLER. 65 

a simple slab commemorated his deeds, but now Brescia and Zurich have erected a 
monument to his memory, at a cost of about $30,000, which was dedicated to Italian 
liberty at Brescia, Aug. 14th, 1882. Arnold's resistance to the union of Church and 
State was determined, and Dr. Wall says that the Lateran Council of 1139 con- 
demned him for rejecting infant baptism. He. pronounces him ' a follower of Bruis' 
in this respect. Both Bernard and Evervine accuse him of deriding infant bap- 
tism, and Evervine says that he administered baptism only to believers. Gibbon 
also states that his ' ideas of baptism and the Eucharist were loosely censured ; but 
a political heresy was the source of his fame and his misfortunes.' 

The Bohemian Brethren and the Lollards. The Reformation began to 
dawn in the thirteenth century in John Tauler and other mystics, but its sun arose 
in John Wickliff, who finished his work in 1680. Some have claimed him as a Bap- 
tist, and Froud finds a resemblance between his views and those of the Baptists, but 
it is more accurate to say that when others carried his principles to their legitimate 
results they became Baptists. Anne, the English queen of Richard II., was sister 
to the Bohemian King, and the personal friend of "Wickliff, who was chaplain to 
Richard. She helped to circulate the works of the reformer in Bohemia. Huss 
made those writings his study, became the apostle of his own people, and was finally 
burned at the stake in 1415. For a long time the Bohemian reformers maintained 
the Bible as the supreme authority in all matters of Christian duty and life, but at 
last divided into two parties, one rejecting all that was not expressly commanded in 
the Scriptures, and the other accepting all ecclesiastical practices which the Script- 
ures did not actually forbid. This is the point of difference between the Baptists 
and the Pedobaptists down to our times. The radicals followed Ziska, and were 
called Talorites, and the other wing were known as Calixtines. The Talorites pushed 
aside the traditions of the Church, and left every man at liberty to interpret the 
Bible for himself, and in 1420 this party published fourteen articles, amongst which 
are these : That the faithful are not to receive the views of the learned, unless they 
are found in the Bible ; that no decree of the fathers, or ancient rite, or tradition of 
men is to be retained but those which are found in the New Testament; that infants 
ought not to be baptized with exorcisms, and that the use of sponsors should be dis- 
continued. Some of this class became the 'Bohemian Brethren,' or 'Brethren of 
the Law of Christ.' These 'Brethren' became about one fourth of the people, and 
Camerarius tells us that many converts to them renounced the baptism of infants 
which they had received in the State Church and were baptized before they entered 
the new fellowship. Goll, in his ' History of the Bohemian Brethren,' says that their 
Tract '" Reasons for Separation from," rejects infant baptism ' (i., p. 73). About 
A. D. 1500 the ' Brethren ' of all sorts in Bohemia were so numerous that Pope 
Alexander YI. sent monks to bring them back to his fold. But this mission failing, 
one bloody edict after another was issued against them by their kings, until the land 
flowed with their blood. 



66 



ENGLISH MARTYRS. 



The Lollakds are supposed to have traced their origin to Walter Lollard, who 
was burnt at Cologne, about 1322. Pope Martin raved against them in the most 
vulgar manner because their underlying spirit sought unfettered thought, free inter- 
pretation of the Bible, and the apostolic simplicity of the ordinances. Fuller says 
that Henry was more cruel to the Lollards in England ' than his predecessors,' and 

Fox, that he was the first English 
monarch who burnt heretics. John 
Badly was brought before Archbishop 
Arundel March 7th, 1409, and con- 
demned to death March 16; then 
he was put into an empty barrel and 
burnt in Smithfield, in the presence 
of the Prince of Wales, afterward 
Henry V. John Florence was ac- 
cused of heresy and renounced his 
views, but he was sentenced to be 
whipped before the congregation 
in the cathedral, 'Norwich, and for 
three Sundays more in his own par- 
ish church at Shelton, bearing a taper 
and clothed in canvass undergar- 
ments. Lord Cobham (Sir John 




ll.VKTYRDOM OP BADLY. 



Oldcastle) was put to death in 1418. He was 
carried from the Tower into St. Giles's field, and 
there hung up by the middle in chains over flames, 
hung as a traitor, and burnt as a heretic. Knighton 
tells us that after Wickliff' s death half the peo- 
ple of England became Lollards, from whom 
sprang a large harvest of Baptists. Sometimes 
the weakness of the flesh asserted itself amongst 
the Lollards for a while, as in the case of James 
Bainham, the son of a knight, himself a barrister 
of the Middle Temple. He was imprisoned by 
Sir Thomas More, who tied him to a tree and 
whipped him with his own hands. He was then 
sent to the Tower, loaded with irons, and con- 
demned to death by Bishop Stokesley on charges 
of heresy. Bainham had said: 'We belong to 

God by adoption, not by water only, but by water and faith.' At first his suffer- 
ings overcame his fortitude and he recanted. He was then compelled to follow a 
cross barefooted to St. Paul's, and to stand before the preacher during the sermon with 




WHIPPING OF JOHN FLORENCE. 



SWISS REFORMERS. 



67 




JOHN OLDCASTLB. 



a fagot on his shoulder and a lighted taper in his 
hand. After paying a fine of £20 he was released, 
but from deep sorrow he publicly recanted his re- £ 
nunciation of Christ and was burnt in Smithfield, / 
April 30, 1532. / 

The Baptists of Switzerland were amongst 
the most earnest of the Reformers. They resided 1|| 
rather in the free cities on the Upper Rhineland 1| 
than in the forest cantoris. On the German side, 
Strasburg, Ulm, Augsburg, and other cities were 
filled with them, while Berne, Basle, Zurich, St. 
Gall, and Schaffhausen, on the Swiss side, were 
their principal resorts. The Churches id these cities held infant baptism in dis- 
credit, not only as a human institution, but as a flagrant impiety, palming itself 

off as an institution of 
God and asking the State 
to enforce it on pain of 
death, while the Church 
claimed to administer it 
in the name of the Trin- 
ity ! They compelled 
Zwingli to prove infant 
baptism by the Bible 
or go back to Rome ; 
and, says Hase : ' We 
can easily see why the 
Baptists were not satis- 
fied with the excuses of 
the Swiss reformers,' and 
as easily why Zwingli 
complained : ' The pa- 
pists call us heretics, 
and the Anabaptists call 
us half-papists.' 

The Baptists began to 
assail infant baptism in 
1523, one of theirpastors 
saying that he 'might 
as well baptize a cow or 
a calf ; ' then fine, im- 
prisonment, and death soon followed each other as persuasives used on the Bap. 




JAMES BAIXIIAM. 



68 



INEXCUSABLE PROTESTANT CRUELTY. 



tists to enlighten their consciences. Dr. Downer says of Zwingli: 'He saw that the 
setting aside of infant baptism was the same as setting aside the national Church, 
exchanging a hitherto national reformation of the Church for one more or less 
Donatis. . . . Then baptism would become the sign of fellowship of the regenerate, 
the saints, who bind themselves together as atoms out of the world.' The Baptists 
preached, baptized their converts, never engaged in sedition, but simply worshiped 
God in their own houses or in the forests and gorges, and the nearest that they came 
to sedition was to deny that the magistrates had the right to persecute them for doing 




HUBMEYER. 



so. "Well did Zwingli admit that nothing cost him so much sweat as his controversy 
with the Baptists. 

Felix Mantz, a son of the canon of the cathedral, and one of the noblest char- 
acters in Switzerland, was led through the fish-market and shambles Jan. 5th, 1527, to 
his judicial murder by order of the Reformed Inquisition for being a Baptist. The 
executioner put the black cap on his head, bound him to a hurdle, and drowned him 
in Lake Zurich as he cried, with Jesus : ' Into thy hands I commend my spirit.' On 
Jan. 27th Capito wrote to Zwingli from Strasburg, saying : 'It is reported here that 



NOBLEST OF SWISS BAPTISTS. 



69 



your Felix Mantz has suffered punishment and died gloriously, on which account the 
cause of truth and piety, which yon sustain, is greatly depressed! 1 The Council 
claimed that they slew him ' as a warning to others.' George Jacob Blanrock was 
first a monk, but on renouncing popery he was baptized by Conrad Grebel, for which 
crime his body was stripped to the waist and, by order of the Protestant Inqui- 
sition, he was led through the streets and beaten till his flesh quivered and his blood 
flowed in his tracks. He was then pursued from place to place, for his eloquence 
moved Northern Switzerland, till, in 1529, he was burnt at the stake at Claussen in 
the Tyrol. 

Balthazar Hnbmeyer was the noblest of all the Swiss Baptists, and probably 
the most learned. He had been the cathedral preacher at the Catholic Cathedral 




VALDSIIl'T ON THE EH1XE. 



at Ratisbon, and the Swiss Protestant pastor at Waldshut, when he and about a 
hundred of his congregation were immersed by Reublin in 1525 ; he then baptized 
more than three hundred of his former parishioners. 

He lay in the Protestant prison at Zurich for four months. For a time his 
faith wavered, and he was taken to the grand cathedral at Zurich to recant before 
the congregation, much to the delectation of the Holy Protestant Inquisition ; when 
suddenly he cried from the pulpit : ' Infant baptism is not of God, and men must 
be baptized by faith in Christ.' Some shouted applause and others were filled with 
horror; Zwingli screamed above the rest, and the devout inquisitors hustled him 
back to his dungeon. He fled to Constance and then to Moravia; he was afterward 
burnt at the stake in Yienna. 

In the year 1527 the Swiss Baptists met at Schleitheim, a little village near the 
foot of the lofty hill Van Ptanden, at the eastern termination of the Jura range, to 



70 



ANCIENT BAPTIST CONFESSION. 



form a Confession of Faith. It consists of Seven Articles, and was sent forth in 
the form of a ' Letter of Brotherly Union ' to the ' congregations of believing bap- 
tized children of God.' A German copy is preserved in the archives of the Canton 
of Schaffhausen. This is the most ancient Baptist ' Confession ' now known to 
exist. 

Lndwig Hetzer, another Swiss Baptist, was a thorough scholar, and translated 
Bugenhagen's Commentary on Paul's Epistles, and CEcolampadius employed him in 
literary work at Basle. He sought refuge with Denk at Strasburg, also at Worms, 
translating the Old Testament. But he was finally imprisoned for four months at 
Constance, and was beheaded February 1529. St. Gall and Basle were great centers of 




BASLE ON THE RHINE. 



Baptist influence as well as Schaffhausen and Zollikon, and it was at Basle that the 
Council decreed that all Baptists should be banished. If they returned they should 
be dipped in water and sent away again, but should they return the second time they 
were to be drowned. 



CHAPTER II. 



BAPTISM AND BAPTISTERIES IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 

THE Emperor Justin crushed out the last right of conscience in the matter of 
baptism in the sixth century, by making it a special subject of civil legis- 
lation. He issued an edict commanding all unbaptized parents to present themselves 
and their children for baptism at once. Leo III. issued another edict, A. D. 723, 
demanding the forcible baptism of the Jews and Montanists. Toward the close of 
the sixth century the baptism of infants was turned to gain, in the shape of fees paid 
for its administration ; but the charges 
soon became so enormous that the poor 
could not pay them, yet, lest their chil- 
dren should die unsaved, the frightened 
parents strained every nerve to get them 
baptized. A few, and but a few, op- 
posed these outrages. Stokes mentions 
Adrianus, a pastor at Corinth, who not 
only refused to baptize infants, but cast 
his influence against the practice ; for 
which Gregory accused him to John of 
Larissa of the crime of turning young 
children away from baptism and suffer- 
ing them to be lost. 1 

As showing the religious greed of 
the times, it may be said here in pass- 
ing, that both in France and Spain the 
sale of bishoprics became common in 
these centuries. The refinement and 
hospitality of the clergy may be in- 
ferred from the fact that A. D. 585 the Council of Macon decreed that bishops 
should not keep mastiffs to worry beggars. Many of these bishops, whose haughti- 
ness was unendurable, could neither read nor write and their lives were given up 
to the most odious forms of iniquity. In 653 the Council of Toledo forbade the 
ordination of those who could not read the psalms and hymns used in the public 
service, with the ritual in baptism. In Britain the canon of Edgar required the 
priests 'To take care of their churches, and apply exclusively to their sacred duties; 




THE BAPTISTERY AT PISA. 



72 GREGORY ON INFANT BAPTISM. 

and not to indulge in idle speech, or idle deeds, or excessive drinking ; nor to let 
dogs come within their church inclosure, nor more swine than a man might govern.' 
Besides this, the grave Council of Prague censured those of the higher clergy who 
whipped the inferior ministers, or compelled them to carry the bishop upon their 
shoulders. And as if these barbarities were not enough, in the seventh century the 
wine of the Supper was mixed with ink and the pen dipped therein, when a contract 
or covenant was signed. Such signatures were peculiarly holy, especially when 
made in the sign of the cross. When bishops wished to throw uncommon venom 
and gall into their curses and excommunications, they called for the consecrated cup, 
which was intended to commemorate the love of Christ, and dipped the pen in this 
fluid to strike the superstitious with double horror. Such absurdities readily prepare 
our minds for the many perversions to which baptism was subjected during the 
same period. 

Infant baptism had about as severe a struggle to force itself upon the faith of 
men as had transubstantiation. In the fourth century we find Gregory of Con- 
stantinople obliged to defend it and publicly censuring parents who delayed it for 
their children. In his fortieth oration and in the pulpit of his cathedral, when 
preaching to many who did not believe in the absurdity, he said : 

' But, say some, what is your opinion of infants who are not capable of judging 
either of the grace of baptism, or of the damage sustained by the want of it ; shall 
we baptize them, too? By all means, if there be any apparent danger. For it were 
better they be sanctified without their knowing it, than that they should die 
without being sealed and initiated. As for others, I give my opinion that when 
they are three years of age, or thereabouts (for then they are able to hear and an- 
swer some of the mystical words, and although they do not fully understand, they 
may receive impressions), they may be sanctified both soul and body by the great 
mystery of initiation.' 

He gives this as ' my opinion ;' and the value of his opinion is seen in its entire 
absence of reference to Bible authority, and in the fact that he was trying hard to 
drive Baptist notions out of 'some ' of his hearers, who raised troublesome questions 
on the subject. His embarrassment can best be understood when we take into account 
that this primate of all Greece was born when his father was a bishop, and yet was 
not baptized himself at ' three,' but only at thirty years of age. Nay, his own Em- 
peror, Theodosius, who was very likely one of his hearers, had just been baptized at 
the age of thirty-four or five years. JSTectarius, who succeeded him as bishop in 
the same diocese and pulpit, was not baptized at all until after his election to fill 
Gregory's place. All his surroundings made it a most interesting occasion for a 
controversial sermon on infant baptism from this great pedobaptist oracle. 

Yet the Penny Cyclopedia says that some of the fathers of the fifth century 
did ' not scruple, in spite of edicts and decrees, to condemn the practice of baptizing 
infants, as a deviation from Scripture and the early custom of the Church.' In 
858-882 infant baptism had become almost universal, to the exclusion of believer's 






POLITICAL BAPTISMS. 73 

baptism, excepting in mission fields where new peoples were converted. Indeed, 
to deny infant baptism was considered, both by the ignorant and the learned, 
as the denial of infant salvation, and all dissidents were hated accordingly. 
Possibly it was on this ground that a synod of British prelates, held near Clonesho 
in 747, decreed that the clergy should take no money for baptizing infants. Chai'- 
lemagne made baptism a political institution, and compelled the conquered Saxons 
to be baptized under pain of death. After this, political baptism and political 
Christianity soon became nearly universal. In 826 his son Lewis was asked to restore 
Harald, a petty king of Jutland, to his throne; he consented on condition that he 
would be baptized, and so Harald and his brother were baptized at Mentz. After 
that two priests accompanied him to his own country and baptized his subjects. 
Hence Christ's simple institution was converted into a piece of political craft, a 
machine of State. Even good Alfred made it a condition of peace that the con- 
quered Danes should be baptized ; and Hume tells us that ' Guthrun and his army 
had no aversion to the proposal ; and without much instruction, or argument, or 
conference, they were all admitted to baptism. The king answering for Guthrun 
at the font, gave him the name of Athelstan, and received him as his adopted son.' 
Thierry adds that the Dane promised Alfred that if he would desist from pursuing 
him, he and his army would be baptized and retire to East Anglia in peace ; and 
Alfred, A. D. 879, not being strong enough to carry on the war, accepted the 
proposal. So this historian says that ' Guthrun and the other pagan captains 
swore by a bracelet consecrated to their own gods to receive baptism faithfully.' 
It may be well to remember that this beautiful arrangement was not made by Jesus 
and John at the Jordan, but by an English king and a pagan Dane, in the ninth 
century. Ridpath, speaking of this enforced treaty-baptism, says that to the Danes 
it ' was no more than a plunge in the water. Sweyn himself had already received 
the rite at the hand of the zealous priests, anxious for the welfare of his barbaric 
soul. One of the other leaders made a boast that he had been washed twenty times? ' 
"We have another case quite as interesting, in connection with Norway and 
Iceland, which is detailed in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Art. ' Infant baptism,' 
by T. M. Lindsay, D.D., Professor of Divinity and Church History in the Free 
Church College, Glasgow. He shows that infant baptism, as a pagan civil rite, ex- 
isted for civil purposes in these two countries long before the introduction of 
Christianity. It was connected with the savage custom of exposing infants who 
were not to be brought up ; much after the order of things in Africa. The Doctor 
says : 

' The newly-born infant was presented to the father, who was to decide whether 
the child was to be reared or not ; if he decided to rear it, then water was poured 
over the child and the father gave it a name ; if it was to be exposed, then the 
ceremony was not gone through. If the child was exposed by any one after the 
ceremony had been gone through, it was a case of murder ; whereas it was not 
thought a crime if the child was made away with before water had been poured 



74 FINES OB CHRISTENING. 

over it and it had been named. The same people, after the introduction of Chris- 
tianity, turned this into a Christian rite called sk'ero? Then the Doctor remarks 
that the analogy between the two ' lies in the use of water, the bestowal of the name, 
and the entrance into civil life through the rite.' 

This thorough and frank scholar might also have added the difference in the 
form of using the water between the ancient pagan rite and the so-called Christian 
rite of these centuries ; for Christianity was introduced into Norway in the tenth 
and eleventh centuries, and its baptism was very different from that of the Apostolic 
age. However, if the ancient Norwegians and Icelanders had immersed their babes 
it would have made no difference, as Ilerzog says that ' the people remained pagan 
at heart long after they had officially become Christians.' 3 "Well did Baronius speak 
of this as a ' monstrous age ' for many other reasons ; but what could be more 
' monstrous ' than the enactment of Charlemagne, that all infants should be baptized 
before they were a year old, a nobleman being lined for neglect 120 shillings, a gen- 
tleman 60, and others 30. In those days a sheep, was bought for a shilling ; so that 
a poor man must sacrifice a flock of 30 sheep and a nobleman 120, if he neglected 
to bring; his babe to this Christian State-fold. 4 The Northumbrian law, A. D. 950 
was in substance the same : ' Let every infant be baptized within nine days, upon 
pain of six ores ; and if the infant die a pagan within nine days, let his parents 
make satisfaction to God without any earthly mulct ; if after he is nine days old, 
let them pay twelve ores to the priest besides.' Whether the fine paid to the priest 
would rescue the deceased little pagan from its lirribus infantum does not appear. 
It is difficult to determine, at this distance of time, what the basis of ' satisfaction 
to God ' might be, as between a babe of seven, nine and ten days ; but there must 
have been some difference, as iElfric understood the matter, when he addressed the 
priesthood about A. D. 759, saying : ' Ye should give the Eucharist to children 
when they are baptized, and let them be brought to mass that they may receive it, 
all the seven days that they are unwashed.' Evidently these teachers were not 
troubled at all about the question of consciousness on the part of the child in either 
of the ordinances ; for about 960 Pope John XIII. baptized a bell in the Lateran, 
and named it John the Baptist ; still the bell understood the matter quite as well as 
the babe. 

The very enactment of these penalties, proves the existence of dissent from 
the custom of infant baptism in all the ranks of society, and in all places where they 
were imposed. Labbe and Cossart tell us that in 1022 ten priests at Orleans, France, 
were found who rejected the doctrine that baptism washes. aAvay sin, and that the 
real body and blood of Christ exist in the bread and wine. The king and queen 
and many bishops flew to the spot in alarm, accused, tried and burnt these holy 
men at once ; the gentle queen keeping guard at the door of the cathedral where 
the proceedings were held, and in a most lady-like manner knocking out the eye of 
her own confessor, who was amongst those consigned to the flames. 5 There was no 



TRINE IMMERSION. 75 

necessity for protest against the method of baptism even in these dark centuries 
for Cardinal Pullus, in the twelfth century, describes it thus : 'Whilst the candidate 
for baptism in water is immersed, the death of Christ is suggested ; whilst immersed 
and covered with water, the burial of Christ is shown forth ; whilst he is raised from 
the w r aters, the resurrection of Christ is proclaimed.' 6 But infant baptism was 
opposed at every step. Dr. Allix speaks of a people in Turin and Milan who vehe- 
mently condemned it as an error, and the Bishop of Vercelli sorely complained of 
them in 945. Dupin quotes Dachery as authority for saying that the canons of the 
cathedral in Orleans, mentioned above, suffered for their views of infant baptism. 
' They maintained that baptism did not remove original sin,' which was the plea com- 
monly used in its favor, in behalf of infants. Milner and Hawies tell us of Gun- 
dulphus, the leader of a people who were brought to trouble for the same views. 
' They particularly objected to the baptism of infants, because they were altogether 
incapable of understanding or confessing the truth.' 7 When Gerard, the Bishop of 
Cambray and Arras, cited Gundulphus to appear before a synod in St. Mary's, at 
Arras, A. D. 1025, he seems to have become nearly wild on the subject. The same 
charge of heresy was brought against Berengarius by the Bishop of Leige, and also 
by the Bishop of Aversa ; and Archbishop Usher thinks that ' Several of the 
Berengarian sect had spread his doctrine in several of the Belgic countries, who 
upon examination did say that baptism did not profit children to salvation.' 

A very warm controversy arose in the sixth century on the subject of trine baptism. 
Pope Pelagius complains of the Eunomians : ' That they baptize in the name of 
Christ alone and by a single immersion.' He avows that Christ requires baptism 
' by trine immersion,' and in the name of the Trinity. Pope Gregory, too, enforces 
this order in his ' Sacramentary : ' 'Let the priest baptize with a triple immersion, 
with only one invocation of the Holy Trinity.' When the Spanish bishops explained 
to him that they had begun to practice single immersion because the Arians, who 
also immersed three times, taught that a second in the name of the Son, and a third 
in the name of the Spirit, indicated their inferior condition to the Father ; he mod- 
ified his order, under the idea that one immersion best expressed the equality of 
each person in the Trinity. Leander, Bishop of Seville, sought the pope's counsel 
in the matter, who, in a letter, replies : ' Concerning the three immersions in bap- 
tism, you have judged very truly already, that different customs do not prejudice 
the holy Church whilst the unity of the faith remains entire.' So he assents to 
the use of one immersion, lest the 'heretics' interpret the three immersions 'as a 
division of the Godhead ; ' at any rate so far as Spain was concerned. ' Yet this 
judgment of Pope Gregory did not satisfy all men in the Spanish Church ; for 
many still kept to the old way of baptizing by three immersions, notwithstanding 
this fear of symbolizing with the Arians. Therefore, some time after, about 633, 
the fourth Council of Toledo which was a general council of all Spain, was forced 
to make another decree to determine this matter and settle the peace of the Church. 



76 



ANCIENT BAPTISTERIES. 



While some priests baptized with three immersions, and the others with but one, 
a schism was raised endangering the unity of the faith ; for the contending parties 
carried the matter so high as to pretend that they who were baptized in a way con- 
trary to their own were not baptized at all.' 8 The council sided with the pope, 
yet it was a long time before trine immersion was abandoned. 

Baptisteries. — As these centuries were peculiarly distinguished for their great 
baptisteries, we shall consider these striking examples of Baptismal Archaeology in 
this place. The valuable remains of antiquity are found not only in books, but in 
ruins, coins, vases, sculpture and other works of art. The fact that Augustus 
Caesar changed Rome from brick to marble throws great light upon the true sources 
of Roman history ; as it shows the trend of the Roman mind not only in the mate- 
rial, but in its measurement, shape, cost and use. Inscriptions also are found with 
other signs on the natural rocks, on tombs, metal plates, tablets of fine clay, pillars 
of temples and palaces. Some of these have continued for thousands of years, and 
are readers to us of ancient history, especially that of Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece 
and Rome. This is especially true when they are intended as monuments of human 
transactions and events. In this way the Baptistery is.the monument of Christian 
baptism. 

To Jesus and his Apostles, the foundations of the Temple, its towers and 
fortresses, were relics of the stone age of Israel. As our Lord habitually walked 

to and fro in its porches and cloisters, these 
relics filled him with sacred thought ; and 
his unlettered disciples asking for the import 
of this sacred Archaeology, exclaimed : ' Mas- 
ter, see what manner of stones and what 
buildings are here ? ' In like manner, these 
ancient baptisteries call us back to the true 
baptismal age, its literature and primitive 
teaching, as these were understood by their 
builders. These antiquarian remains chal- 
lenge our reverence for Christian truth, and 
every lover thereof will take pleasure in these 
historic stones, will walk about them to tell 
their number and honor their dust. His 
love of the truth endows them with a voice ; they cease to be dead architecture and 
become living teachers. Such sacred remains calmly rectify the mistakes of the 
present ; for in that case, the simplicity of the child corrects the sophistication of 
the man. They teach us that present truth-lovers do not stand alone in their gen- 
eration, but that the years of ancient times call us back, to our profit. Old cent- 
uries as by magic draw us back, and old generations rehearse the truth as it lives 
in venerable art and antiquity. These throw the inward spirit of the past into the 




ANCIENT BAPTISTERY AT AQDILEJA. 



THE ROMAN BATHS. 



77 



present outward form and become the frame-work for new thought ; and through 
their imagery the living past and the living present are brought into the equipoise 
of a sublime truth. They help us to put new meaning into old words and acts ; so 
that instead of casting the old away, it is continued, found to be eternal and 
exactly harmonious. 

The baptisterium amongst the ancient Romans was simply a place of bathing, 
which Rugler calls the ' swimming-tank of the ancients ; ' and its construction is 
well illustrated by the discoveries at Pompeii, especially in one of the lesser baths of 
white marble, which Gell describes as of a circular form eighteen feet six inches in 
diameter. With them, as with us, a bath in the ordinary sense of the word 
was the immersion of the body in a medium different from the ordinary one of 
atmospheric air, which medium 
was usually common water in 
some form. The Romans prac- 
ticed warm more than cold bath- 
ing, and wherever they found hot 
springs they converted them into 
baths. The ' warm ' water spoken 
of in the recently discovered 
* Teaching of the Apostles,' leaves 
the implication that the public 
baths were used for baptism. 
The baths of Caracalla contained 
1,600 marble seats around the 
inner sides, for the use of bath- 
ers ; and those of Diocletian, 
3,200 ; these buildings being open 
to the public, and the price for 
bathing being only about half a cent of our money. Of course, primarily, these 
baths were constructed without regard to the Christian rite, but in all probability 
they suggested the form of Christian baptisteries. Wallcott says in his ' Sacred 
Archaeology:' 'The early Christians were baptized in water by the road-side (Acts 
viii, 36-38) ; or in a river (Acts xvi, 13-15) ; or in a prison (Acts xvi, 33) ; or in a 
spring, or at sea ; or in private houses (Acts ix, 18 ; x, 47, 48) ; or in any place.' At 
Rome there was an early baptistery in the house of Cyriacus, in the Pontificate of 
Marcellus, A. D. 308-310, according to the same authority. Down to the middle of 
the second century no place was specially set apart for the rite, for at that time the 
Christians had no places of worship. But by the end of the third century they had 
not only sanctuaries of their own, but also special buildings devoted to the uses of 
baptism, as those spoken of by Eusebius, at Tyre. Haydn's ' Dictionary of Dates ' 
says: That in the 'reign of Constantine, 319, baptisteries were built, and baptism 




ANCIENT ROMAN BATH. VATICAN MUSEUM. 



78 ITALIAN BAPTISTERIES. 

was performed by dipping the person all over.' Hope says that the early Chris- 
tians ' Always practiced baptism by immersion, and out of the church (edifice) ; 
consequently they wanted a building for the purpose of baptism, as much as for 
that of worship.' 9 

The earliest Christian baptistery known is in the Catacomb of Calixtus at 
Rome, and was used in the times of the pagan persecutions. Parker says that this 
catacomb was a burying-place as early as the first century, although its earliest inscrip- 
tion is A. D. 268-279. This secret, subterranean relic is a small chamber, containing 
a cistern, or as it is called, ' a well,' a fountain ; and is about four feet deep, supplied 
by a small stream on the left side, with steps down into it, as Parker says, ' for 
baptism by immersion.' When the first Christian sanctuaries were reared, baptis- 
teries were also erected as distinct buildings ; but often the baptistery preceded the 
Church edifice itself and was the point about which the place of general assembly 
arose. In such cases the baptistery was built on a large scale for receiving a great 
number of people, and it stood near to the church building to which it belonged. 
Generally the form of the baptistery was hexagonal, but some were circular and all 
had a \&re piscina, or reservoir, in the middle. They were also called ' illuminatoria] 
because there the converts were instructed or illuminated before baptism. The bap- 
tistery was not introduced into the church edifice until the sixth century, and then 
only into the porch or entrance, to indicate that immersion was the door into the 
Church itself ; but this practice did not become common until the ninth century. 
Yet Clovis was immersed in a church edifice in the latter part of the fifth century. 

"We have distinct accounts of about sixty of these structures in Italy alone ; in 
the generality of Italian cities one large baptistery sufficed for all the churches of 
that city. These commonly adjoined the cathedral, as at Pisa and Florence, but in 
Rome itself most of the churches were supplied with baptisteries ; for mention is 
made of the building or repairing of five different baptisteries in that city, between 
A. D. 772-816. Pope Leo III. rebuilt that of the Apostle Andrew, a circular 
building and enlarged its ' fons,' because the place was too small for the people 
who came for baptism. In distinction from all others this building became known 
as ' The Baptistery ; ' and as its size increased it grew into a meeting-place for re- 
ligious assemblies, even for ecclesiastical councils. In each baptistery there was a 
table for the Supper as well as a reservoir for the immersions ; and Martene tells 
us that until about the eleventh century the Supper was administered there to all 
who were immersed. Immersion was the necessity which called these structures 
into existence. Rahn says that their 'origin' was 'dependent' on the old custom 
of having a great baptismal occasion, and of the rite of immersion ; otherwise a 
bowl in the hand would have met every purpose, as now, in all cases where immer- 
sion is not practiced. The ' Encyclopaedia Britannica' truly says, Art. ' Baptistery : ' 
' Christianity made such progress that infant baptism became the rule, and as soon 
as immersion gave place to sprinkling, the ancient baptisteries were no longer 



FONTS OF LATER AN AND FLORENCE. 



79 




BAPTISTERY OF ST. JOHN (LATFRAS). 



necessary.' Then the size of the font was reduced, and as immersion was pushed 
aside the bowl sufficed. Gailhabaud in his celebrated work on architecture 
covers this point : 

' At the origin of the new religion baptism was to be administered by immer- 
sion. We desire to especially note a locality marked by the cemetery of St. 
Pontianno. There one sees a kind of large basin, filled with water, and hollowed 
out of the soil at a depth quite convenient to 
receive quite a number of neophytes.' But 
when the Church in most of Europe ceased 
to 'recognize the inopportuneness of immer- 
sion and replaced it by pouring, — ever since 
that time it has established, in place of the reser- 
voir made below the soil and tilled with water 
for immersing the neophytes, the font of stone. 
This marks in the history of religion and of the 
liturgy a very noticeable change in the admin- 
istration of baptism.' 10 

In the nineteenth century, where Christians 
have turned their backs upon the old ordinance 
and substituted another, they build no such edi- 
fices at an enormous cost ; but the primitive 
Christians looked upon burial in water as obedi- 
ence to Christ, and their anticpiated baptisteries stand as solemn witnesses against 
the popish innovation. Prior to the tenth century, Easter, Pentecost and the 

Epiphany were the ordinary times- 
employed for baptism, when great 
numbers of the candidates and their 
friends assembled ; rendering it need- 
ful that the baptisteries be spacious 
and separate from the church build- 
ings, which were always crowded by 
the general worshipers. 

The most celebrated of the bap- 
tisteries now remaining are found 
at Rome, Florence and Pisa; the 
most ancient being that of St. John 
of Lateran, at Rome, fourth century. 
This building is octagonal, being 
about 75 feet in diameter and is ex- 
tremely splendid. The piscina, or 
bath, is octangular, of green basalt, 
about 25 feet in diameter and from 3 to 4 feet deep. It was constructed by Sixtus III., 
who died A. D. 140 ; and, according to De Bussiere, ' has served as a model for all 




BAPTISTERY AT FLORENCE. 



so 



THE SHAPE OF BAPTISTERIES. 



those ' erected in the principal Italian cities. On the ceiling of me of its cbapsfo is 
an old mosaic of the Baptist immersing in the Jordan, possibly of the fifth century. 
It is seldom used for baptism, yet to this day such Jews and pagans as accept the 
Koman faith are immersed there on Easter Eve. On the shape of these baptisteries- 
Audsley makes these curious remarks, in his 'Dictionary of Architecture:' 'Eor 
more than one reason the octagon appears to have been adopted in preference to the 

circle. It was the one which 



jAfiny H 



% 



',. 



'M%. 



f Jms 



presented the least difficulty 
of construction, especially 
when the classic entablature 
was retained ; it was also 
from very early times held 
as the emblem of regenera- 
tion. The square, from the 
original idea of the earth's 
shape, was accepted as the 
emblem of the world ; the 
octagon was adopted by the 
Christians as that of perfec- 
tion, consequent upon the 
confession of the faith, and 
the new birth in baptism ; 
and the circle as the emblem 
of eternity or everlasting 
life.' u 

The most magnificent 
baptistery now in existence 
is that of Florence. It has 
a diameter of about 100 feet, 
its gallery is supported by 16 granite columns, and its vault is decorated by the 
richest mosaics. Its bronze doors are marvels of beauty in bass-relief, and fifty 
years were spent in preparing them. This structure was originally the cathedral 
of the city, built about the middle of the seventh century. The old font stood in 
the center ; but when Philip de Medici was immersed in it his father to the great 
disgust of Florence, had it destroyed, for the same reason that Peter I., of Russia, 
broke the drinking-cup of Luther after drinking from it himself, namely, that it 
should never be used again. The locality of the font is still seen, however, as that 
part of the floor is plainly paved, while the rest is laid in beautiful patterns of black 
and white marble. The present font was erected A. D. 1658, to supply the 
place of that which was destroyed A. D. 1577. 

The baptistery of Pisa is known to the entire world for its splendor. It has a 




INTERIOR OF BAPTISTERY OP FLORENCE 



BAPTISTERY OF PISA. 



81 



diameter of 116 feet, and its pear-shaped dome towers 160 feet high, supported 
by most costly columns and arches. It was commenced A. D. 1153, and its 
cost was so great that it long remained unfinished, until the citizens levied a rate 
upon themselves for its completion. Its walls are eight feet thick, it has a base- 
ment, a main and an attic story. The font is described by Webb as an octag- 
onal bath ' for adult baptism.' The building was begun by Diotisalvi, but the 
work was not prosecuted until 1278, nor completed till about the opening of the 
fourteenth century. Credu- 
lous people of the nineteenth 
century would have us be- 
lieve that all this taste, toil 
and cost was had for the pur- 
pose of pouring a handful 
of water upon the head ! 
The accompanying cut of 
the interior as it stands to- 
day gives the ancient ideal 
of Gospel order : 1. The 
pulpit, from which the can- 
didate for baptism is ex- 
horted to faith on Christ. 
2. The basin or font in which 
he is immersed. It is octag- 
onal, being 14 feet in diam- 
eter and 4 feet deep, and is 
supplied with water by a tube 
after his immersion. 

The largest baptistery ever built was that of St. Sophia at Constantinople. At 
one time it served as the residence of the Emperor Basiliscus, and a great ecclesi- 
astical council was held within its walls. Three thousand people once assembled in 
the baptistery at Antioch at one time, to be baptized ; but the baptistery of St. 
Sophia was greater even than that at Antioch. 

Mention may be made of the great baptistery at Aix, which was constructed A. D. 
1101 ; of that of Verona, A.D. 1116 ; and of that of Parma, with its three matchless 
gates, said to have been pronounced by Angelo as worthy of being the gates of Paradise. 
The same praise is claimed for those of Florence, and yet it is questionable whether he 
said this of either of them. The Parma baptistery was-begun A.D. 1196, and completed 
1281. Its great marble font, 8 feet wide and 4 feet deep, is cut out of one yellowish-red 
block and stands in the middle of the floor, bearing date A. D. 1299. The records 
of the Church at Parma contain an official report of its uses, sent to the pope and bear- 
ing date November 21, 1578, saying that this sacred font was consecrated to baptism 




PULPIT, BAPTISTERY AND TABLE AT PISA. 

3. The Lord's Table, where he took the Supper 



82 OTHER BAPTISTERIES. 

i per immersionem.' 12 The baptistery at Verona contains a basin of marble 28 feet 
in circumference, hewn out of a single block of porphyry, and is four and one half 
feet deep. The baptistery of Pistoia is especially interesting, and differs from most 
of those described. It was built A. D. 1337. The font is of white marble and is 
square. Standing near to the western entrance is a beautiful black and white marble 
pulpit, from which sermons were preached, to show that the people must hear and 
believe before they could pass into its waters. Its square pool is 10 feet in di- 
ameter and 4 feet deep. The baptistery at Milan is peculiar, and differs from all 
others. As if to convey the Scriptural idea of burial, it is in the shape of the 
ancient sarcophagus. Its material is porphyry, being 6 feet 8 inches long and 24 
inches deep. Dean Stanley refers to this baptistery in the words : ' With the two 
exceptions of the cathedral of Milan and the sect of the Baptists, a few drops of 
water are now the Western substitute for the threefold plunge into the rushing 
rivers or the wide baptisteries of the East.' 13 

Great Britain furnishes a beautiful example of a natural but historic baptistery 
which must be noted here. Dr. Cathcart presents it in this graphic description : 

' About eleven miles from the Cheviot Hills, which separate England from 
Scotland, and about the same distance from Alnwick Castle — the well-known resi- 
dence of the Dukes of Northumberland — and two miles from the village of Har- 
bottle, there is a remarkable fountain. It issues forth from the top of a slight ele- 
vation, or little hill. It has at present as its basin a cavity about 34 feet long, 
20 feet wide, and 2 feet deep. By placing a board over a small opening at 
one end its depth can be considerably increased. A stream flows from it, which 
forms a little creek. . . . The spring is a place of public resort for the population 
for many miles around, and for numerous strangers, on account of its early baptis- 
mal associations. . . . An ancient statue, as large as life, lay prostrate in the 
fountain for ages, probably from the period when the monasteries were destroyed, 
in the time of Henry VIII. This statue, when the writer saw it, was leaning 
against a tree at the fountain. It was, most likely, the statue of Paulinus. It was 
called " the bishop." Its drapery, the action of the atmosphere upon the stone of 
which it is made, and its general appearance, show that it was set up at a very re- 
mote period, perhaps two or three centuries after Paulinus baptized the Northum- 
brian multitude in the fountain.' u 

This fountain is commonly known as ' Our Lady's Well,' after the Virgin, and 
is one of the natural baptisteries where Paulinus administered Christian immersion. 
The Vicar of Harbottle has caused a crucifix to be erected in the center, with the 
following inscription: 'In this place Paulinus the bishop baptized three thousand 
Northumbrians, Easter, 627.' This accords exactly with the statement of Camden, 
who describes Harbottle as ' on the Coquet River, near to which is Holystone, where 
it is said that Paulinus, when the Church of the English was first planted, baptized 
many thousands of men.' A convent lies in ruins at Holystone, close by, which was 
probably raised as a monument to the holy spot and its waters. Camden lived in 
the last half of the sixteenth century, when the tradition was all aglow ; and the 
clerical son of Oxford reared this cross as late as 1869. 



THE BAPTISTERY OF PAULINUS. 



83 



As to the Supper, the doctrine of transubstantiation crystallized in those 
centuries, and apparently in an incidental way. In 787 the Council of Nice alleged 
that the bread and wine of the Supper were not images of Christ, but his very body 
and blood. This brought the great controversy to a head, and giants on both sides 
drew their swords. Amongst these Ratram wrote a powerful treatise against tran- 
substantiation, 863, which centuries afterward convinced Ridley of his error on 




BAPTISTERY OF BISHOP PAULINTTS. 

the subject ; then Ridley lent it to Cranmer, in whom it wrought a similar change. 
John Scotus, the Roger Bacon of his day, wrote a stronger work, 875, which lived 
for about two centuries. Many Councils denounced, and that of Rome, 1059, con- 
demned it to be burnt. Berengarius, 998-1088, followed with heavy blows. Bigotry 
wrecked itself upon these men in every shape, but their doctrines spread through 
Germany, Italy, France and Britain ; for as fires never burn out controversies, more 
than winds blow out stars, the dispute went on to the Reformation and is as firm 
and fresh to-day as ever. 



CHAPTER III. 

ANCIENT BAPTISMAL PICTURES. 

THESE have come down to us chiefly in frescoes, mosaics and bass-reliefs. 
Baptism itself symbolizes thought as it lies in the divine mind, so that the 
human eye catches the truth of which it is the symbol. Art in these pictures marks 
the ordinance as it existed in the life-time of the artist, and only to this extent are 
they of historical value. The co-existing literature of his times, however, must show 
the purpose of his treatment, and interpret its forms in his absence. In fact we are 
so dependent on this literature, that where a separate history of the picture is not 
preserved, only the contemporary writings of its day can give us its age. The pict- 
ures, therefore, even in the rudest state of the art are in no case purely realistic, 
but symbolical also. Dean Stanley pronounces those of the Catacombs, ' mis-shapen, 
rude and stiff,' which is seen at a glance. Most of them have been restored several 
times and also altered ; so that, as Parker remarks, to this extent they have lost 
their historic value, especially by changes of shape and color, though the general 
design is unchanged. He says : ' A work which has been restored becomes the work 
of the hands that restore it.' Their age and damp situation has rendered their 
restoration necessary, and in the case of the Callixtine frescoes he ascribes this 
work to Leo III., 795 ; and that of Ponziano to Nicholas I., 858-867. Even the 
great fresco of the Supper by Da Vinci, at Milan, though upon a perfectly dry 
wall and scarcely four hundred years old, is fast fading oxtt. Parker states that the 
St. Ponziano has not been restored ' over carefully,' and that ' The rather rash out- 
line of the Baptist's right arm and shoulder are drawn over a far more careful and 
correct figure.' Also : ' The stiffness of the restoration, white eyes and heavy, incor- 
rect outline, point to a late date.' 

Early Christian art at the best was deficient in all respects, and its broad, 
symbolic ideal must ever be remembered in seeking its historic bearings. The earlier 
companion pictures on the Supper made by the same hands in the same places 
strongly attest this. The table is spread, a company is gathered around it, but with 
one exception no wine is on the table. There is a small supply of bread in some 
cases, in others abundance, but in all there is much fish ! A fresco in the Crypt 
of St. Cornelius presents a mysterious fish swimming in water, with a basket on 
its back containing the bread and wine of the Supper. Yet this strange conceit is 
in keeping with the ancient play upon the Greek letters of our Lord's technical 
name IX0T2, that is, ' The Fish.' This is a very ancient anagram amongst Chris- 



SYMBOLIC PICTURES. 



8S 



tians. Almost all the fathers, Greek and Latin, call him ' The Fish,' the ' Heavenly 
Ichthus ; ' and so they made the fish an emblem of both Baptism and the Supper, to set 
forth the truths which these express. This figure was early engraved upon the rings 
of Christians by the advice of Clement of Alexandria, 194, possibly because the 
heathen could not detect its meaning. He says : ' Let the dove and the fish ... be 




NO. 1. THE SYMBOLIC SUPPER. 



signs unto yon ; ' and Augustine calls Christ the Fish, ' Because he descended alive 
into the depths of this mortal life as into the abyss of waters.' An inscription of 
the fourth or fifth century found at Autun, France, exhorts the baptized to 'Eat, 
drink, holding Ichthus in thy hand. Faith brought to us and set before us food, a 
Fish from a divine font, great and pure, which she took in her hands and gave to 
her friends, that they should always eat thereof, 
holding goodly wine, giving with bread a mingled 
drink.' Yet the ancient Christians never celebrated 
the Supper by the use of fish. Here, then, while 
we have the realistic table, we have the mystic sym- 
bol of fish thereon — possibly intended by the painter 
to keep before the mind Christ's presence with his 
disciples, when he broke bread and ate fish with 
them on the evening after his resurrection. A more 
singular use of a fish is found in the Catacombs, 
where a ship is carried on its back through the water — evidently intended to repre- 
sent the Church being carried through the stormy sea of life by firmly resting on 
Christ, ' The Fish.' The helmsman also is Christ, the Dove on the poop is the 




No. 2. — THE CHURCH AS A SHIP ON CHRIST 
THE FISH. 



86 



SYMBOLS OF THE CHURCH. 



Holy Spirit, and the Dove on the mast represents the heavenly peace which Jesus 
is giving both to Peter and the ship. 

Hippolytus glows when speaking of the Church as a ship, tossed by storms 
but never wrecked, because Christ is with her. He makes the cross her mast, his 
word her rudder, his precepts her anchor, the sea her laver of regeneration. The 
Spirit breathes into her sails to waft her to her heavenly port, and he gives her an 
abundant entrance into her desired haven. In the above rude gem from the Cata- 
combs two Apostles are rowing, and a third, Peter, is stretching his hand to Christ 
in prayer as he meets Jesus on the wave, to save him from sinking. But in the 
following we have the idea of Hippolytus, where the storm-fiend is endeavoring to 
wreck the Church by persecution. In the distance is a man swept away by the 
same waves which dash over the vessel, to represent the children of this world being 
drowned in the billows of perdition. But with Christ on the deck and the Almighty 
hand reached forth from above, the cross-ribbed flag rises high in the bow above the 
threatening sea. Although the rudder is swept away, the outstretched hands of 
Jesus direct her course in the gale. 




JJP& 

NO. 3. — SYMBOL OF THE CHURCH AS A SHIP. 

These purely symbolical pictures from the Catacombs may help us to under- 
stand their Baptismal Pictures, where we have a large admixture of the real and the 
symbolic. No. 4 is from the Crypt of St. Lucina at Rome, and is described by 
Father Garrucci. Its date is in dispute, but it is the oldest painting of Christ's bap- 
tism known. Many high authorities assign it to the close of the second or the open- 
ing of the third century, amongst them De Rossi. The Saviour is leaving the Jor- 
dan after his immersion, and John takes him by the hand to welcome him to the 
bank. Neither the head of John nor that of Christ is adorned by the nimbus, which 
was not adopted into Christian art from pagan art to indicate sanctity and authority 
till the fifth century. But the leaf in the mouth of the dove, which denotes the 
Holy Spirit, indicates that he brings a message of peace from heaven in honor of 
Christ's baptism. A passage from Tertullian throws light upon this figure : ' As 
after the waters of the deluge, in which the old iniquity was purged away, as after 
that baptism (so to call it) of the old world, a dove sent out of the ark and returning 
with the olive-leaf was the herald to announce to the earth peace and the cessation 
of the wrath of heaven ; so, by a similar disposition with reference to matters 
spiritual, the Dove of the Holy Spirit sent from heaven flies to the earth, to our 



BAPTISMAL PICTURES. 



87 



flesh, as it comes out of the bath of regeneration after its old sins, and brings to us 
the peace of God.' (De. Bap., c. vii.) 




NO. 4. — JESUS BAPTIZED IN THE JORDAN. 

No. 5 presents a youth ankle-deep in water, the administrator holding a roll in 
one hand, and resting the other on the candidate's head to plunge him in the water. 
The roll in his left hand indicates his authority or commission to baptize, as one ' sent 




NO. 5. — A SUPPOSED IMMERSION OF JESUS. 



from God;' and also shows that the painter had John in his 'mind's eye,' even if 
lie fell into a double anachronism first as to the extreme youth of Christ, and then 
in substituting the Roman toga for the Jewish tunic ; showing both his Roman taste 



88 CHRISTIAN ICONOGRAPHY. 

and the poverty of his artistic genius by copying the drapery of his every-day life. 
The Ursian Mosaic at Ravenna clothes John in a robe of similar fullness in which 
the folds hang differently, the toga being capable of endless adjustments as seen in 
classic statuary. But is this painting from ' the Chamber of the Sacraments,' in the 
Catacomb of Callixtus, a baptism of Christ ? The Arian Mosaic of St. Maria, in 
Cosmedin, is intended for Christ without doubt, in which he looks almost boyish, as 
also in this fresco. The ablest writers call attention to this fact, as according with the 
general methods which treat of him in all departments of early Christian art. 
Didron, in his great work on ' Christian Iconography,' treats at large upon the 
juvenility of Christ's figure in all early Christian art, but especially of this curious 
feature in the earliest Catacomb pictures, which constantly represent him as a youth 
from twelve to fifteen. He remarks : ' That the figure of Christ, which had at first 
been youthful, becomes older from century to century, in proportion as the age of 
Christianity itself progresses. That of the Virgin, on the contrary, becomes more 
youthful with every succeeding century.' P. 249. This method came neither from 
mistake nor ignorance ; but was chosen as the best mode known to express the meek, 
lowly and teachable in Jesus. Lord Lindsay says : ' He is represented as an 
abstraction ; as the genius, so to speak, of Christianity ; a beardless youth, to signify 
the everlasting prime of eternity.' The nude figure stands in the water only slightly 
above the ankles ; but his undress, as well as the expanse of the water, are in them- 
selves symbols of his immersion without regard to the depth of the sheet ; for why 
should the artist place him in water at all, especially unclothed, in order to pour 
water on his head ? The youth is standing at his full height, and Garrucci writes 
of this picture : ' The candidate has only his feet in the water. The water, then, in 
which one must be immersed, is not, in fact, literally represented, but indicated by 
sign.' (VI, v, p. 95.) 

Nos. 6 and 7 from the Catacomb of Callixtus relate to the same subject ; 6 
being taken from Garrucci, and 7 from De Rossi. They are symbolical and strik- 
ingly illustrate the painter's conception of baptism. These frescoes are on separate 
walls of the same crypt, and Prof. Mommsen treating them as one continuous picture, 
says with great clearness : 

' We see on the first wall a man striking the rock with his staff ; from the 
spring thus opened a fisherman catches a fish on a hook. Farther on the same 
spring serves as a baptismal font, out of which the man baptizes the boy standing 
before him, laying his hand on his head. Without doubt, Christ is here conceived 
of as the rock, as in the Epistle to the Corinthians : " They drank of that spiritual 
rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ ; " and the man who strikes the 
rock is more likely Peter, who is often designated the new Moses,. than Moses him- 
self. It is not necessary to speak of the fisherman, Peter, who was called to be a 
fisher of men.' Here we have that favorite symbol of the fathers, which applies the 
figure of the fish to Christians as well as to Christ, as Tertullian : ' We smaller fishes, 



ALLEGORICAL PICTURES. 



89 



after the example of our Fish, are born in the waters ; ' and of Melito, second cent- 
ury, ' fishes are the holy ones of God.' Hilary, Augustine and Optatus in the fourth 
century do the same, the latter calling the baptismal waters '■piscina,'' a fish-pond. 
By introducing the angler into the picture, the idea is conveyed that another con- 
version has taken place, and so the newly-immersed candidate is another fish caught, 
a disciple of Christ drawn out of the waters of baptism which flow from Christ 
the smitten rock ; a purely allegorical idea in exact keeping with the religious lit- 
erature of the times in which the painter lived. 




NO. C. — SUCCESSFUL GOSPEL PHEACMIXG. 























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NO. 7. — CONVERSION AND BAPTISM. 



Here are clearly three distinct and purely allegorical ideas : a wide expanse of 
baptismal water issuing from a rock and shown to be ' living ' water from the fact 
that it contains large fish ; a Gospel minister represented by the fisherman with his 
hook and line, first acting as a 'fisher of men' and then baptizing the disciple 
drawn to Christ ; after that comes the perfected baptism in the ' laying on of the 
hand ' when the process of conversion is finished and attested. "What, then, are we 
to understand by the profuse, fire-like jets which fall around the candidate as he 
stands in the water nearly up to the knees ? With a singular infatuation this 
fresco has been eagerly seized upon as the one drawing of antiquity proving the 



90 NO AFFUSION HEBE. 

modern doctrine of affusion with water as baptism, either added to immersion or sub- 
stituted for it ; but used chiefly to justify this substitution, directly in the face of all 
Church history and literature, for the first thousand years after Christ. Clearly his 
body has just been raised from the water, and this spray shoots above the head of 
the candidate to the height of about one-fourth of his person, then falls on one side 
to a line with his thigh and on the other down to the water. It is the only picture 
of an ancient baptism in which such a spray is found ; and the question to be de- 
termined is, whether the artist intended it as a symbol or a realism, while much 
else in the scene is allegory. It cannot be mistaken for a nimbus nor yet for 
an aureole, although it compasses the whole person excepting a part of one leg. 
Certainly the law of gravitation determines that it cannot be intended for water 
dripping from the body after immersion, for it flies upward more than the length 
of the head and neck together above the head. Nor can it be water or oil, or any 
other liquid whatever falling from the baptizer's hand or from a vessel, as his hand 
rests flatly and firmly on the youth's head. Affusion or aspersion of water are en- 
tirely out of the question here, because the spray has no natural or apparent source. 
Neither the sense of sight nor a stretch of the imagination can call it water without 
showing where it comes from. Let any man try a thousand times to produce such 
a fillet of water around any one without the use of the uplifted hand, or of some 
vessel from which it is poured, and he must fail as often as he tries. More than 
this, the curves have not the appearance of water. The lines start up from the middle 
of the head in an arched, forked, wing-like form, which cannot be produced with 
water excepting when dashed upward in a body and with great force. The 
strokes of the pointed lines above the head, the flamboyant curve as of flame and its 
arching over the shoulders at so great a distance from them, do not harmonize with 
the specific gravity of falling water. But they look more like jets of flame projected 
upward and outward by the natural force of fire, and they convey the conception 
which the ancient artists expressed of 'cloven tongues, like as of fire.' No. 8, 
taken from the Catacombs and photographed from Garrucci (vol. iii, pi. 140, No. 1), 
expresses the same symbolical idea in association with the resting of cleft flames 
upon the heads of the Apostles at Pentecost. 

The artist has introduced the Virgin Mary in the center of the Apostolic group, 
possibly because she is mentioned with the ' Twelve,' Acts i, 14 ; and also to express 
his idea of her superiority to them, by taking the place of her Son at their head, a 
notion in keeping with the errors of his day. The ' cloven ' or divided appearance 
of the fire, as well as its flashing form, indicates the same idea in these two painters 
of different dates. The blaze-like curve in No. 7 suggests that the author intended 
that fresco to express his idea of the figurative and supernatural baptism of fire in 
union with baptism in water — a thought in perfect harmony with the religious lit- 
erature of his times. We have innumerable instances in which the Fathers speak of 
such a baptism in association with the baptism of water. Tertullian tells us that 



TRADITIONAL BAPTISM OF FIRE. 9 1 

the Valentinians added this fire baptism to their water baptism. Smith's ' Dictionary 
of Antiquities ' not only treats of a sect who maintained the true baptism to be that 
of the Spirit and fire, but speaks of a treatise in which ' we read of some who, by 
what means is not known, produced an appearance of fire on the baptismal water, 
in order to complete what they thought necessary for Christian baptism.' l A tra- 
dition existed on this subject from Justin Martyr downward. In his dialogue with 
Trypho the Jew, he says that ' When Jesus descended into the water, a fire was also 




NO. 8. — CLOVEN TONGUES, AS OF FIRE. 



kindled in Jordan.' The Ebionite Gospel reports that after Christ's baptism: 
' Immediately a great light shone around upon the place.' In commenting upon 
these passages, Dr. Lardner remarks : ' This account, therefore, of the fire in the 
river Jordan seems to be only a story which Justin had received by tradition.' Drs. 
Cave and Grabe, as well as Lardner, think this tradition an inference drawn from 
the evangelical account of the opening heavens. 2 Add to this the avowal of John 
concerning the baptism of fire not many days hence, and it is easy to see how the 
traditional fiery baptism associated itself with the primitive water baptism in many 



92 VIEWS OF CYRIL. 

minds. Ephrem, the great hymnist of the Syrian Church, fourth century, speaking 
of Christ's baptism says: 'Behold the fire and the Spirit, in the river in which thou 
wast baptized.' Is it any more strange that an ancient painter should embody this 
emblematic idea in a picture, than that so grave a Father as Justin should incorpo- 
rate it into his controversy with the noted Jew ? Surely, there was more common 
sense in doing either, than in the late attempt to force this fresco into the service of 
aspersion by making it an annex and interpreter of 'The Teaching of the Twelve 
Apostles.' 

That work requires men to be baptized in ' running water. But if thou hast not 
running water, baptize in other water ; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. 
But if thou hast neither, pour water upon the head.' Here, however, the admin- 
istrator has both running water and an abundance of it ; and, therefore, to pour 
water upon the head would be in direct opposition to the above injunction. A 
wide stream of ' living water ' is presented, big enough to produce a fish, in length 
one third of the candidate's full stature ; and so the baptizer is supposed to be 
following the instruction in the exceptional case by pouring water on the head, and 
that miraculously too, without the aid of any vessel or the use of either of his 
hands ! Here is a pedobaptist miracle in resurrection from the Catacombs for en- 
lightening the nineteenth century. Even Smith's ' Dictionary ' forces this Callixtine 
fresco to bear testimony to affusion in baptism as an ancient practice, and cites as 
a parallel case, that ' one common mode of bathing among the ancients was the 
pouring of water from vessels over the body, as we may see in ancient vase paint- 
ings.' That water was so used in the ordinary spray or shower-bath is clear 
enough ; but what has that to do with this picture ? Here is not the representation 
of the usual bath, but of a Christian baptism. Besides, when the ' vase paintings ' 
picture affusion in the common bath, they show the vessel from which the falling 
water flows, which is the very thing that this painting does not show. It cannot 
be enlisted into this modern service without the greatest violence to the literature 
of the earlier ages. Chrysostom understood the baptism of fire metaphorically, for 
the gifts and graces of the Spirit ; while Cyril of Jerusalem understood it real- 
istically, as seen in the form of cloven tongues at Pentecost. 3 The resemblance to 
fiery horns rising above the head of the baptized in No. 7, and the forked flames 
above the heads of the Twelve in No. 8, are clearly intended to represent the same 
symbolical ideal, by similar arching, cleft and aspiring curves. But the affusion 
of water is inadmissible until it can be shown where it comes from, and how it 
ascends far above the head in this cleft and arching way without visible agency or 
projecting force. 

No. 9 is a more important painting, found over the baptistery in the Catacomb 
of St. Ponziano, which is ascribed by Boldetti to the fifth or sixth century, but by 
Parker to the ninth. It is over an arched recess, at the bottom of which is a well 
or fountain, said to have been used for baptism by the early Christians in the times 




NO. 9. — BAPTISTERY IN CATACOMB OF ST. PONZIANO. 



BAPTISTERY,— ST. PONZIANO. 93 

of persecution. In the upper part Christ is represented as standing up to the waist 
in the Jordan. The Holy Dove with rays from his beak is over his head, fish 
are swimming in the water, and a hart or stag is looking intently into the stream. 
John is standing on the bank reaching forward with his hand on Christ's head. 
Another figure stands on the opposite side in a white garment ; the three figures 
have the nimbus. The lower part of the representation is under the arch ; on the 
wall is a jeweled cross with the A. and ft hanging from its arms to indicate that 
Christ is the Beginning and the Ending of faith, and the two candlesticks standing 
upon them are designed to set forth the Divine and human nature of our Lord.. 
The symbolism here is on a large scale, for the artist evidently intended not only to 
give us an ideal baptismal scene in the immersion of Jesus, but to associate with it 
such a body of divinity as would show the great doctrines on which baptism rests,, 
and its necessary outcome from them ; so that the emblematic and the realistic: 
are copiously blended. The jeweled cross is very significant, being set with gems T 
leaves and flowers. This the ancients called The Cross of Glory, while they called 
the plain wood The Cross of Shame, to mark the degradation to which the Bap- 
tized Crucified submitted for our sins. The two flames from the candlesticks on 
the transverse beam are designed to show the wealth and fullness of illumination 
which the atonement throws upon baptism, and the light needed by those who are 
buried beneath its waters. Then, the cross itself descends into the water to exhibit 
the connection of the atonement by Christ's death with the ordinance. The clear 
and still fountain beneath is the believer's liquid grave, where he is to be buried. 
' into the likeness of Christ's death.' 

Portions of the upper picture are purely imaginative, as the angel on the right 
shore from Christ resting on a cloud and holding our Lord's robe. Then, the hart 
looking earnestly into the water symbolizes the thirst of the believing soul for the 
waters of baptism. This idea is probably borrowed from Jerome's comment on the 
first verse of Psalm xlii : 'As the hart pants after the water-brooks, so does my 
soul pant for thee, O God.' The nimbus thrown around the head of John, Jesus 
and the angel, and the luminous irradiancy around the Holy Dove, distinguish them 
as sacred personages. Thus, in this remarkable picture, the immersion of Jesus 
and the deep baptistery provided for those who cling to his cross are but members 
of a great system of truth which the artist intended to preach ; his primary purpose 
being to show forth Christ's redeeming work and the results flowing from it by 
faith and obedience, as seen in baptismal burial and resurrection with him. The 
baptistery is supplied by a natural spring, and is, according to Eicci, from four to 
five feet deep ; Canon Venable says, with a descent of ten steps. Since writing the 
above, Dr. Dodge calls attention to Bellermann's description of a baptistery in the 
Catacombs at Naples : ' There is a niche in the wall under the middle door, eight 
feet high, five and a half feet broad, in which one still sees a cross with four equal 
arms painted red, and a Greek inscription, which means "Jesus Christ conquers/' 



^94 



MOSAIC AT RAVENNA. 



According to a tradition, there was once before this niche a great baptismal basin, 

deeply embedded in the earth, so that one could look on this place as the baptistery 

of a subterranean Church.' P. 81. It seems that the cross was a baptismal one, 

like that which we see in the Pontian Cemetery. The inscription is remarkable. 

Rev. St. John Tyrwhitt in his work on ' Christian Art and Symbolism ' says : 'The 

earliest crosses, as that called the Lateran, are baptismal crosses. . . . The cross is in 

its first use the symbol of baptism into the Lord's death, or death with him.' P. 124. 

No. 10 presents the same symbolic style. It is the noted Ursian Mosaic, taken 

ifrom the Baptistery of St. John at Eavenna, supposed to have been built by Ursus, 

A.. D. 390-396, but the mosaic which adorns its high dome is referred to 450. Its three 

most striking symbols are 
the lettering at the left 
of Christ's shoulder ; the 
anointing of Jesus by John 
with oil or myrrh from a 
vessel ; and the river-god. 
Our Lord stands up to the 
waist in the waters of the 
Jordan, with the nimbus and 
Holy Dove over his head. 
John's right hand holds the 
' ampulla,' or anointing cup, 
over Christ's head,but his left 
hand grasps a jeweled cross. 
His left knee is bent forward 
and sustains what looks like a 
cruet or flask, in shape much 
like the Oriental bottle made 
of skin. This object partly 
obscuring John's knee, the 
cross and Christ's right arm, suggest the source from whence he has drawn the oil for 
the anointing. This however, only provided it is not a defect in the mosaic, which 
is possible. Garrucci names no blemish here in his description of the picture, while 
he speaks of one in the lettering ' lord,' which was originally ' Iordann.' This medall- 
ion realistically confines the subject to the immersion of Jesus in the sacred river ; 
but the artist adds the symbols in harmony with the practice of baptism in his 
own times. Lundy's comment is, that John ' applies the unction with a small 
shell.' * 

At what time the custom of anointing the baptized with oil originated is not 
known. Jortin thinks that it was unknown to Justin Martyr, A. D. 103-168, as he 
does not hint at it in describing the rite of baptism. But Justin refers to it in 




NO. 10. — MOSAIC, FROM BAPTISTERY OF ST. JOHN, RAVENNA. 



ANOINTING IN BAPTISM. 95 

another place, saying : ' If Mary anointed the Lord with myrrh before his burial, 
.and we celebrate the symbols of his sufferings and resurrection in baptism, how is 
it that we first, indeed, anoint with oil, and then celebrating the aforesaid symbols 
in the pool, afterward anoint with myrrh ? ' 5 The general custom of anointing in 
baptism probably came in a little later, when the wealthy began to embrace Chris- 
tianity, for Tertullian says much of this unction. We may see the reason for its 
adoption, for every-where in the Roman Empire the free use of oil was deemed 
necessary to the completion of a common bath. The Christians found many fan- 
ciful reasons for the introduction of this practice in baptism. God anointed Jesus 
with the Holy Spirit at his baptism — the very name 'Christ' signifies the anointed ; 
Mary anointed his body before his burial, with much more in that line ; and so 
according to the best authorities they gave many reasons for this ' chrism,' as they 
called it, both before and after baptism. Anointing betokened prosperity and hap- 
piness, and so they likened the Spirit to oil and his grace to unction ; and after 
baptism they poured olive oil upon the head, thus, as they said, anointing their con- 
verts with the ' oil of gladness above their fellows,' in token of their consecration 
to a holy life. Tertullian writes : 

' We are, acccording to ancient custom, thoroughly anointed with a blessed 
unction, as the priests were wont to be anointed with oil from a horn. And the 
unction running down our flesh profits us spiritually in the same way as the act of 
baptism, itself carnal, because we are plunged in water, has a spiritual effect in 
delivering us from our sins. Then the hand is laid on us, inviting the Holy Spirit, 
through the words of benediction, and over our cleansed and blessed bodies, freely 
descends from the Father that most Holy Spirit.' 6 

They found many other reasons for this practice. In the Grecian games, the 
wrestlers and runners anointed themselves plentifully before they began their con- 
tests. When their frame and joints were pervaded with oil, it was supposed 
to give them a quick agility of action and an easy grace of movement, and 
so added to their chances of success. As Paul referred to the laws of these con- 
tests, ' so run I, so fight I,' they borrowed a figure from the same, and applied it to 
the Christian athlete, when beginning his race and combat in baptism. Ambrose, 
of Cahors, the supposed author of ' He Sacramentis,' says to the immersed : ' Thou 
didst enter. . . . Thou was anointed as the athlete of Christ/ 7 Dr. Cave, quoting 
Cj'ril, remarks : 

' They were cut off from the wild olive and were engrafted into Christ, the true 
olive-tree, and made partakers of his fruits and benefits, or else to show that now 
they were become champions for Christ and had entered upon a state of conflict, 
wherein they must strive and contend with all the snares of the world, as the athlete 
of old wei'e anointed against their solemn games, that they might be more expedite, 
and that their antagonists might take less hold upon them. Or rather, probably, to 
denote their being admitted to the great privileges of Christianity, a chosen genera- 
tion, a royal priesthood, a holy nation (as the Apostle styles Christians), offices of 
which anointing was an ancient symbol, both of being designated to them and inter- 



96 ANOINTING IN BAPTISM. 

ested in them ; and this account Tertullian favors, he tells ns 'tis derived from the 
ancient, that is, Jewish discipline, where the priests were wont to be anointed for 
the priesthood : for some such purpose they thought it fit that a Christian should be 
anointed as a spiritual king and priest, and that no time was more proper for it than 
at his baptism, when the name of Christ was confessed upon him.' 8 

This unction figured largely in the ecclesiastical controversies and legislation of 
after centuries; and as early as the fourth, a contest arose whether it should pre- 
cede or follow baptism. Tertnllian's statements show that it followed baptism, and 
most of the Fathers contended lustily for the same order, Augustine being amongst 
the most earnest. Bunsen says that ' The unction followed immediately after the 
immersion.' This question fanned the love for anointing into a mania, until Rabanus, 
Archbishop of Mentz, A. D. 788-856, actually exalted it into a separate 'sacra- 
ment.' He did this by doubling each ordinance ; and so he called the bread and wine 
two, and the ' chrisma ' another, apart from the immersion ; four in all. 9 Dr. Cave, 
citing Cyril again, says (p. 324) that the person baptized: 

' " "Was anointed the second time, as S. Cyril tells us ; and, indeed, whatever be- 
comes of the unction that was before, 'tis certain that that which Tertullian speaks 
of as a part of the ancient discipline, was after the person was baptized." The 
anointing took place both before and after the immersion ; and the whole service 
was finished by binding a white linen cloth, called the " chrismale," around the head 
of the immersed, to retain the oil upon the head for a week afterward.' 10 

The author of the Ursian Mosaic evidently wished to portray the anointing of 
Jesus in connection with his baptism ; but unable to depict the invisible unction of 
the Holy Spirit, he meets the necessity by putting the ordinary baptismal unction into 
the hand of John. It entered not his mind to emit a stream from the beak of a dove, so 
the best agent that his art could supply was the anointing cup in John's hand. Hence 
he is pouring on the oil above the nimbus and beneath the head of the Dove, to indicate 
his authority from God to place his hand between the second and the third persons 
in the Trinity, to the honor of God's anointed Son. This act directly connects the 
artist's conception of the river-god with the effect of the anointing. When he did 
this work the universal teaching was that great virtue lodged in the baptismal oil, 
in fact, that it was miracle-working in its effects. Cyril, of Jerusalem, tells us that 
the holy oil in baptism destroyed all traces of sin and drove out the evil one ; and 
Pacian insists that ' the baptismal water washes away sin, the chrism gives the Holy 
Spirit, and so the regeneration is complete.' n Not the least of these effects is seen 
in expelling all demons and evil spirits from the water by the oil. In conformity 
with this idea, the artist has introduced the emblematic figure of the river-god, 
according to the ancient form. He has ascended from the stream, with a leafy 
calamus or reed in his hand and a wreath on his brow, in token of dominion over 
this river. He is alarmed, is looking away from the holy anointing and bends for- 
ward, as if making for the shore to depart from a scene of such sanctity. No. 11 
gives us an ancient Roman bath, as is seen by the elegant heathen bass-relief upon 



BAPTISTERY OF CONSTANTINE. 



97 




NO. 11. — OLD BAPTISMAL FONT. ST JOHN ON THE PEDESTAL. 



it, whicli had been consecrated to Christian use by placing upon the oil pedestal 
an image of John the Baptist, who is invoked to serve as its patron saint. 

In the baptistery known as that of Constantine, adjoining the Church of St. 
John of Lateran, at Rome, special provision was made for this service of unction. 
The circular basin of this build- 
ing is three feet deep and twen- 
ty-five in diameter. Both Anas- 
tasius and Damasus, in their 
lives of Sylvester, say that in 
their time it was lined within 
and without by 3,008 pounds 
weight of silver ; and ' in the 
middle of the basin stood a col- 
umn of porphyry, bearing on its 
top a golden phial full of oint- 
ment,' to be poured upon the 
heads of the newly-immersed 
ones. Hence the mosaic under consideration steps forth to confirm the literature of 
many centuries, which in its turn reflects light back upon Christian archaeology. 
The attempt, then, to force this picture into the service of modern affusion does the 
greatest possible violence to all the circumstances of the case, and to the unbroken 
testimony of the ages. In the absence of color in a piece of sculpture or painting 
where liquid is poured forth, the circumstances and positive testimony taken to- 
gether must determine what that liquid is. And in all these cases these pictures 
unite in showing it to be oil and not water. Common sense alone suggests, nay, 
even common decency, that no one would take another to a stream of water, strip 
him naked and lead him down into it up to the waist, for the purpose of pouring 
water on the head from the hand or a shell or a vessel, either before or after the 
honest immersion of that head in the same element, much less without such im- 
mersion at all. At any rate, those who pour water on the head now and call it 
baptism are extremely careful not to go through such a series of useless acts to reach 
that end. If the primitive Christians did, they were not so wise as the moderns. 
But when they tell us that oil was poured upon the head in baptism, ' as the priests 
were wont to be anointed with oil from a horn,' as Tertullian expresses it, we can- 
not only see the reason for all these steps, but for their full expression in ancient 
Christian art. 

This absurd claim renders itself simply ridiculous, in the attempt to show that 
because clinics or sick persons in bed had water poured upon them, which act 
passed for baptism, any example of this can establish a universal rule. Jesus was 
not a clinic at any time, much less when John baptized him ; nor were clinics taken 
to the Jordan and placed in its waters up to the waist, that a cup of water might 



98 



ARIAN BAPTISTERY AT RAVENNA. 



be poured upon their heads. This picture treats of the baptism of Jesus ; and it 
was just as natural that the painter should invoke the use of oil, the universal cus- 
tom of his day amongst Christians in baptism, to represent the anointing of the 
Holy Spirit, as that he should use the cross, the flask and the river-god. But what 
sane artist would think of making John lead our Redeemer nude into the Jordan 
to pour a cup of water on his head ? He would be deemed as fit for the lunatic 
asylum as the coming painter who shall represent a current infant baptism in this year 
of grace 1886 by drawing John in the Jordan with a naked babe in his arms, dropping 
a particle of water on its brow from a cup, with a flask of water on his shoulder. 

No. 12 is found in the dome of the Arian baptistery at Ravenna, and is known as St. 
Maria in Cosmedin. It is given by Father Garrucci and bears date a century later than 

figure 10, namely, A. 1). 553. 
Here again, our Redeemer is 
presented above the loins in 
the waters of the Jordan ; 
which river is made a winding 
trench, with a typical resem- 
blance to the actual course of 
that sacred stream, as if the 
artist had visited the spot. 
The Holy Dove has descended 
directly above the head of 
Christ and hovers there, emit- 
ting a stream of unction from 
his beak which actually unites 
him with the person of our 
Lord. The Baptist is clothed in 
a camel's skin, holding a bent 
reed in his left hand, while his 
right rests upon Christ's head. 
At the right of Jesus is the river-god again, a seated figure with long hair and horns ; 
instead of the wreath on his head we have the leafy calamus in his hand to indicate 
his royalty ; his lower limbs are wrapped in an ample robe and an urn stands at his 
side. Abbe Crossnier points to the horns and urn as emblems of his deity ; and his left 
hand raised in astonishment seems to express wonder and alarm for the holiness of 
the scene, but especially has the heavenly unction startled him. Here we see what 
a century had done for the mosaic art. By this time the later artist had devised a 
better method of symbolical representation, so that he disposes entirely of John's 
intervening cup between the Spirit and the Son, to express the anointing; and 
brings the Dove and the Lord into immediate union by a realistic flood from the 
mouth of the Dove, to set forth the divine unction. This is in exact accord with what 




NO. 12. — MOSAIC, ARIAN BAPTISTERY, RAVENNA. 



THE HOLT DOVE. 99 

Smith says of another ancient practice. In article ' Dove ' he observes : ' A golden 
or silver dove was often suspended above the font in early times. These sometimes 
contained the anointing oil used in baptism.' . . . ' Doves of the precious metals, 
emblematic of the Holy Spirit, were also suspended above the font in early churches.' 
, . . ' One of the charges brought against Severus by the clergy of Antioch at the 
Council of Constantinople, A. D. 536, was that he removed and appropriated to his 
own use the gold and silver doves hanging over the sacred fonts.' 12 But the am- 
pulla was more frequently in other shapes than that of the dove. 

With all these facts staring us in the face, men have the temerity to tell us 
that in one of these mosaics John is pouring out water on the head of Jesus, and in 
the other the Holy Dove is pouring out — well, they do not exactly know what, but 
something that teaches the doctrine of affusion in Christian baptism ! What do 
they mean by this ? Do they mean any thing, soberly and definitely ? Can they 
mean that the artists in these mosaics intended to teach that the water baptism of 
John administered to Jesus was incomplete, until the Baptist in the first case and 
the Spirit in the second superadded a water affusion likewise \ Will they give us 
one example, in the Bible or out of it, in which it has ever entered the mind of man 
that the Holy Dove has poured water upon any man to complete his water bap- 
tism or to supersede his immersion ? Certainly not. But this artist clearly did in- 
tend, by a too literal and realistic manner, to attempt the reduction of an invisible 
anointing of Jesus of Nazareth to the physical eye, and hence this stream from the 
mouth of the dove. The design in both cases is unmistakable. In the Ursian 
Mosaic the oil descends from John's vessel to depict an anointing of the Spirit by 
the use of oil without a stream from the Dove, and in the Arian Mosaic the Dove 
gives forth his own anointing essence ; consequently the literal oil is dispensed with, 
showing that in both cases unction is set forth and not water. If the reader will 
examine No. 8, he will see that the artist of the Pentecostal scene, intended 
to present Mary as receiving the Spirit's anointing in the same way precisely. The 
divided flame rests upon her head as upon each of the Apostles, but in addition the 
Dove emits a stream from his beak, exactly like that in the Arian Mosaic. Did 
the artist intend to convey the thought that the Spirit was aspersing Mary with 
water in baptism ? And yet there is the same reason for saying this, that there is 
for saying that the Arian artist intended the mosaic to carry the idea that the Holy 
Spirit emitted a stream of water upon her Son in baptism. No, we say with Lundy, 
in his 'Monumental Christianity : ' ' The Dove is pouring down the Divine afflatus 
from his beak on the head of our Lord.' 

No. 13 is a fragment of glass from a broken cup found in the Esquiline, and 
known by the name on its face. It depicts a newly baptized girl. Those who have 
examined it say that when held to the light its transparency reveals her figure, with 
her knee raised and bent and her right arm extended, as if preparing to leave the 
baptistery. A priest with a halo around his head stands at her side, in a priestly 



lOO 



THE CUP OF ALBA. 



copiously from it upon the girl's head. 



robe. Directly above her is an inverted globular vessel, universally known in 
ecclesiastical parlance as the ' ampulla.' It is hung in a garland and a liquid flows 

This vessel takes this name, says ' Smith's 
Dictionary of Christian An- 
tiquities ' (Art. ' Ampulla '), 
'probably from its swelling 
out in every direction ' . . . . 
' A globular vessel for hold- 
ing liquid ; ' in fact, the very 
vessel used in the old Roman 
bath and at the ancient bap- 
tistery for the purpose of 
anointing. A hand rests upon 
the girl's head, and a dove 
hovers above her bearing a 
branch of seven stems, to in- 
dicate the seven graces of 
the Spirit which are now 
hers ; the dove itself being a 
messenger of peace, as in the 
Saviour's baptism (see No. 
4). Every item in this frag- 
ment is full of symbol. The white clothing indicates the girl's future purity, chas- 
tity and faith ; the ampulla is hung in a garland to denote that the occasion of the 
baptismis festive ; it hangsnear the bright, opening heavens without visible support ; 
the dove is descending to show that she is a favorite, ' beloved ' of God ; and she stands 
in the deep water to denote her immersion. We are chiefly concerned, 
however, with the inverted ampulla, its contents and their use in an- 
cient baptism. The accompanying cut, No. 14, is taken from the article 
' Bath ' (' Encyc. Britannica '), and is the same vessel found in the cup of 
Alba. It was in common use amongst the ancient Christians at the 
altar, for it contained the wine as well as the oil. "When John III. 
ordered the Lateran Church at Rome to supply altar-plate for the Oratory of the 
Martyrs, with other pieces, he required the ampulla. Yet as 'Smith's Dictionary' 
says : 

' More commonly the word denotes a vessel used for holding consecrated oil or 
chrism. Optatus Milevitanus tells us that an " ampulla chrismatis," thrown from a 
window by the Donatists, remained unbroken. ... By far the most renowned am- 
pulla of this kind is that which is said to have been brought by a dove from heaven 
at the baptism of Clovis, and which was used at the coronation of the Frank kings. 
Hincmar, in the service which he drew up for Charles the Bold (840), speaks of this 
heaven -descended chrism whence that which he himself used was derived, as if of a 




NO. 13. — CUP OP ALBA. 




NO. 14. 
THE AMPULLA. 



THE LESSONS OF THIS CUP. 101 

thing well-known. Flodoard (10th century) tells us that at the baptism of Clovis, 
the clerk who bore the chrism was prevented by the crowd from reaching his proper 
station ; and that when the moment for unction arrived, St. Bemi raised his eyes to 
heaven and prayed, when a white dove suddenly flew upon the rostrum, bearing an 
ampulla filled with chrism from heaven.' 13 

This vessel was often of gold, silver or other metal, and was hung over the 
font as well as the altar, as in this Cup of Alba. The knowledge of these facts sets 
aside the unnatural and forced notion, that the ancient Christians took candidates 
into deep water for the purpose of pouring a little on their heads in lieu of immer- 
sion ; and that against their own testimony to the contrary for thirteen hundred 
years. With this glass fragment before his eyes, a man's common sense should tell 
him that no necessity could call for hanging an inverted vase in this style over the 
head of a baptized person in order to pour from it a little water on the head, while 
she stands in very deep water, and the baptizing priest stands at her side empty- 
handed. His dress and nimbus show him to be a sacred person, while his attitiide 
and outstretched hand express reverence at this falling unction. We have, indeed, 
records of Church theatricals in the Dark Affes, but few are so ridiculous as this 
perfusion would be. Such a play would not be good pantomime, but the most sense- 
less of dumb shows, and withal very full of machinery. While unction was no 
part of baptism as Christ ordained it, but was, as Bingham says, 'an appendage to 
baptism,' yet it 'came to be regarded as an essential part of baptism ; and the author 
of the ' Constitutions ' insists that the anointing must be had with oil, or ointment, in 
order to participation in the Holy Spirit, on the part of the immersed. 

A word must be added, as to the laying on of the hand in all these pictures. 
The imposition of the hand is as old as the race, its significance resting on the pur- 
pose — that of healing, mediation, investiture in office or blessing. Here it relates 
to immersion, and of this one act it is symbolic. Generally these pictures present 
their finished subject, without the order in which one act consecutively followed 
another in making up the whole. The several parts are to be taken in their natural 
succession, as the painter has given us his finished ideal. In no other way could he 
give his subject in repose. He cannot well give it at an unfinished stage of the 
baptism, as at the moment of burial or when buried or when rising. Therefore, 
the hand is laid on the head either before the candidate is bowed forward for 
immersion or when it is raised afterward. In these pictures we have both. Ter- 
tullian's remark clears up the whole matter. He says : ' A man having been let down 
in water and dipped between a few words rises again. . . . Then the hand is laid on 
us, invoking and inviting the Holy Spirit through the Benediction.' 14 

The accompanying cuts give additional force to this fact. That from St. Mark's, 
~No. 15, is unmistakable, and is evidently intended to give the whole significance of 
our baptism as well as the facts of our Lord's baptism. We have John's ax laid 
at the root of the trees, and the generation of Christ's immersed followers repre- 



102 



THE HAND ON THE HEAD. 



sented by the fish and the new-born convert with him in the waters ; both symbol- 
ical of the newly born to God, whatever their actual age. A man of eighty just 
brought to Christ is what Paul calls a ' new-born babe ; ' and in the person of a eon- 
vert in the water, at the foot of the angel who is about to cover him with a robe, 
we have precisely the idea of "Tertullian : 'We smaller fishes, after the example of 
our Fish, are bom in the waters.' No. 16 is found on the northern gate of the Bap- 
tistery of Parma, a bass-relief sculpture intended to represent the baptism of 
Christ, as is seen by the nimbus around the head of the immersed. The waters of 
the Jordan are thrown up into a heap, after the style of art in the Middle Ages, 
this picture being attributed to the thirteenth century. 





NO. 15. — MOSAIC OF TTI1 CENT., ST. MARK'S, ROME. 



NO. 16. — BAPTISM IN 13TII CENTURY. 



In seven out of the eight pictures used here, where the baptized are standing 
in the water, the hand of the baptizer is laid upon the head ; the only exception 
being that of St. John, Ravenna, where John is anointing our Lord. Even in the 
Arian Mosaic, where the Dove is anointing Christ, John's hand is laid on his head 
to indicate the finished immersion. But the highest authorities on these works of 
Christian art tell us, that the hand on the head of the person in the water is the 
sign of immersion. Beltrasni, of Ravenna, says of John's hand on Christ's head in 
the Arian Mosaic : ' The priest placed his hand fully upon the head of the candidate 
while in the water ; and thus by three immersions and rapid emersions the baptism 
was complete.' 15 Bottari states that ' The hand is placed on the head to indicate 
immersion.'' 16 The 'Apostolic Constitutions' require 'The priest to lay his hand 
upon the head of the candidate, dipping him three times.' Garrucci in his history 
of ' Christian Art ' says : ' That the laying on of the hand was customary and of 
special moment in immersion.' 17 Cardinal Colonna writes : ' The Catechumens, 
without clothing, descended into the water of the baptistery, and were there immersed 
three times; the priest accompanying the act with his hand, and invoking at each 
immersion the name of one of the persons of the Holy Trinity.' 18 And De Rossi 
warns us that ' We ought not to confound the imposition of the right hand with 
which the ministrant accompanies the immersion of the candidate with what the 



THE CONCLUSION. 103 

bishop does in the case of the neophyte, as he emerges from the water, and is clothed 
in white at the confirmation.' 19 Tims, these and other adepts, not one of them Bap- 
tists, bring daylight from the Catacombs, bearing voluntary and unbiased witness 
against their own practice as aspersionists. 

There are many more early pictures of baptism besides these, amongst them a 
n3table one of a king and queen in a baptistery, each wearing a royal crown, sup- 
posed to represent their majesties of Lombardy, immersed about A. D. 590. All, 
however, bear the same line of interpretation, and all the reliable authorities declare 
that their interpretation is found in immersion. Then these two things are quite 
as remarkable in confirmation of its correctness, namely : 1. That in none of the 
Catacomb pictures is John found pouring any thing on Christ's head, as his anoint- 
ing was ascribed to God directly. We have the earliest instance of this in the Raven- 
nian Mosaic of A. D. 450, when oil was universally used upon the baptized. 2. We 
have no case in the Catacombs of any one dipping a babe in water, or of one hold- 
ing a babe in the arms, pouring or sprinkling water upon him. All are adults, and 
all are standing their full height in the water ; while we have many inscriptions to 
deceased infants ana some pictures of children, amongst them that of Jesus bless- 
ing children, given in this work. But in no case is there the least sign of water in 
connection with them suggesting baptism. Even where our Lord blesses the child, 
they both stand on dry land, the littls one at his side. This silence, under all the 
circumstances, is suggestive without the weight of historical testimony; and as a 
negative, it hints broadly in confirmation of its opposite positive. 

It is believed that while the foregoing suggestions are not intended to be inter- 
pretations of the pictures given, they are in harmony with the teaching and practice 
of the earlier centuries, as their literature shows abundantly. That this teaching 
and practice varied from New Testament injunction and example is not to the point. 
The crude and even ridiculous notions embodied in these pictures were seriously 
entertained by those who executed them, and they all go to show that the practice 
of those ages was in harmony with that of the Baptists of our own times, in so far 
as that the radical idea of baptism was that of the burial of the body in water. 
None of the archasologists, historians or interpreters here cited are Baptists, but 
chiefly they are Catholics and antiquarians of great note, who have given the result 
of their researches simply as antiquarians and not as biblical critics or theologians. 
Their testimony bears every mark of candor and is entitled to great weight. 



CHAPTER IV. 

GERMANY. 

FROM A. D. 1073 to 1525-6 the 'Peasants' War' had at different times shaken 
Southern and Central Germany. This war Avas prosecuted almost entirely for 
•several centuries amongst Catholics alone, but in 1624-5 by Lutherans and Catholics. 
The disgrace of Minister had its inception, in some sense, at Zwickau, under the 
lead of Nicholas Storch, who set apart twelve apostles and sevent} r -two disciples 
under the wild notion that Christ authorized him to do so. Perhaps, at first, Zwickau 
influenced Miinster unconsciously. But in 1532 Rothman, the powerful Lutheran 
pastor at Miinster, revived the war afresh, and in that city six entire parishes fell into 
the hands of the Lutherans, nothing being left to the Catholics but the monastery 




and the cathedral. Then Rothman suddenly avowed himself an ' Anabaptist,' and 
ran into every kind of wild vagary. Amongst those who flocked about him were 
Brockhold and Mathieson, who soon outran Rothman in wildness, each in turn be- 
coming prophet and king. Soon Miinster became a rabble, every vile passion was 
let loose without regard to limit or decency, and so frantic the madness became that 
all detail became monstrous. No greater injustice can be done to any people than 
has been done to the German Baptists in saddling them with the villainies of Miin- 
ster. Not one of their old and acknowledged leaders was found in this uproar, and 
few of their people were found in its fanatical epidemic except this new convert 



CRUELTIES AND MARTYRDOMS. 



lOS 



from Lutheranism and those who immediate]}' followed him. Happily, the historians 
of modern time have lifted the calumny which made the Baptists responsible for 
the horrors of Miinster. Schaff pronounces it ' the greatest injustice to make the 
Anabaptists, as such, responsible for the extravagances that led to the tragedy of 
Miinster.' Ulhorn says that ' Sedition, or a call to sedition, is not chargeable against 
the Anabaptists of Southern Germany at this time ; I have found no trace of any 
fellowship with the seditious peasants.' And Frank, who wrote at the time, says : 
' All the Baptists oppose those who would fight for the Gospel with the sword. 
Some object to war or any use of the sword, but the most favor self-defense 
and justifiable war.' On the other hand, Cornelius tells us plainly : ' All these 
excesses were condemned and opposed wherever a large assembly of the brethren 
afforded an opportunity to give expression to the religious consciousness of the Bap- 
tist membership.' This is shown in the Swiss Confession, while Hans, of Overdam, 




MUNSTER. 



said : ' We are daily belied by those who say that we would defend our faith with 
the sword as those of Miinster did. The Almighty God defend us from such abom- 
inations.' In a word, Goebel tells us (i, p. 189) 'that two hundred moral and mod- 
erate Baptists in Miinster itself heroically withstood the iniquity, and forty-eight 
of them were put to death there for their resistance, so that nearly fifty Baptists fell 
martyrs in their attempt to purify that German Sodom.' 

After Hubmeyer fled from Zurich, in 1526, he established the Baptist cause in 
Nicholsburg, in Moravia, which in process of time became very strong ; in fact, in 
twenty years sixty congregations were established in Moravia — Schweinitz counts 
them at seventy. But persecution began in 1528, and many of them fled to Hun- 
gary and Transylvania. A second storm burst upon them in 1535, and a third in 
1554. The ferocity of Ferdinand and Rudolph II. attempted their extirpation, but 



106 BANISHMENT OF BAPTISTS. 

they failed to destroy these Churches of Christ. Many of the Baptists who were 
driven over the borders of Switzerland made their way to Baden, Bavaria, and 
Austria. 

The free city of Strasburg was a Baptist stronghold. The first so-called re-bap- 
tism was administered there by Jacob Gross, a disciple of Hubmeyer, in 1526. Many 
distinguished citizens became Baptists — physicians, engineers, teachers, publishers, 
and others. Denk came to this city in 1526, and did great service ; and in 1528 Kautz, 
the Lutheran pastor at Worms, became a Baptist, but, being put under sentence of 
banishment, he fled to Strasburg. In 1529 he was cast into prison there, whence, with 
others, he was banished again. Yet this severity did not dislodge the Baptists, for 
in 1531 Bucer Avrote to Blaurer : ' They cause me infinite trouble.' Afterwards, he 
charged the Senate with ' sin ' because it did not drive the Baptists from the city, a 
wickedness which it perpetrated under his spur, in 1534, and in the next year the 
magistrates forbade every body to feed or shelter the Baptists, for the sake of Chris- 
tian ' love ! ' On severe penalties for disobedience they required every babe to be 
christened before he was six weeks old, and decreed that if the banished Baptists 
should return, they should lose a finger, be branded on the cheek, or put in the 
neck-iron, and for the third offense they should be drowned. Yet the Baptists 
multiplied amongst these Apostolic Reformers. 

In Southern Germany, Augsburg was the headquarters of Baptists, for in 1527 
their Church there numbered 800 communicants. The first company was gathered 
in 1524 by young Hetzer, and after him Denk became their leader. He was a 
finished scholar, having studied at Basle, and he drew many noted people to the 
Baptist Church, but under the perpetual persecutions of Rhegius he was obliged to 
fly for refuge to Strasburg, where he met Bucer in public disputation. We after- 
wards find Denk at Worms, translating the Old Testament prophets. Keller says 
that Denk and Hetzer rank amongst the standard translators of the German Bible. 
In 1527 Denk presided over a gathering of sixty Baptist leaders at Augsburg, but 
in the same year he died a natural death at Basle. Haller calls him ' The Apollo 
of Anabaptism.' 

In the year that Denk died, Dangenmantel, a German, became the pastor of the 
Augsburg Church. October, 1527, he was brought before the magistrates and told 
that for his heresy he deserved to be beheaded, but in view of his noble quality he 
should only be banished. Finally, he was put to death by the sword, although his 
family offered five thousand florins for his release. Rhegius, the reformed pastor, 
was at the bottom of all the bloody work against that Church. Sender, a monk of 
the city, kept a daily account of their sufferings, and says that on Jan. 12, 1528, 
twelve were banished ; 13th, thirty were imprisoned ; 18th, ten were perpetually 
banished ; 19th, twenty were driven out of the city ; 22d, seven were scourged out 
of town ; 23d, three men and five women were driven out ; 27th, one was branded on 
the cheek, one had his tongue cut out, and fully a score were put to death. 



MARTYRDOM IN THE NETHERLANDS. 



107 




THE BEHEADING BLOCK. 



The Baptists of the Austrian Tyrol have a most interesting history. Fugitives 
from other lands flocked there as early as 1525, and Ferdinand began a bitter per- 
secution against them in 1527. All Baptist property was confiscated, and Ulrich 
Muller was burnt alive at Brixen, yet the Baptists filled Iunthal and the Brenner 
pass. Down to 1531 1,000 Baptists had been mar- 
tyred in the Tyrol, and when the storm was at its 
height Jacob Utter went from Moravia to strengthen 
them, but he suffered fearfully, in common with his 
brethren. 

The Baptists of the Netherlands clearly 
sprang from the Waldensians, for as early as 1180 
the doctrines of Waldo found their way into Holland, 
and in 1233 Flanders was full of their refugees. The 
Mennonites sprang from them, according to Ypeig 
and Dermont, who say that ' they rejected infant 
baptism, and used only adult baptism.' Simon Menno was born in Friesland, in 
1192. He had been a Catholic priest, but when he heard that Sicke Snyder had 
been put to death at Leeuwarden in 1531, because he had been baptized on his faith 
in Christ, he searched the Scriptures for a trace of infant baptism and found none. 

Then he cast his own christening- aside, 
and for a quarter of a century he went 
through Friesland, Holland, Brabant, West- 
phalia, and the German provinces on the 
Baltic planting Baptist Churches. After 
a wonderful life this saint of God died in 
peace, 1559. The accounts of the martyr- 
dom of the Netherland Baptists are horri- 
ble in the extreme. Such historians as 
Motley show that in five and twenty 
years, under Charles V., 50,000 persons 
were slaughtered in the Netherlands for 
Cli rist's sake, a large proportion of them 
being Baptists. Buckle, quoting from the 
official report of the Venetian embassador 
to the court of Charles V., says ' that in 
Holland and Friesland more than 30,000 
persons suffered death at the hands of 
justice for Anabaptist errors.' The whole land was stricken with terror, for, as 
Dr. Rule says : ' The very air was polluted by the stench, and the knell of death 
sounded heavily from every belfry.' Despite all this, the Baptists multiplied greatly 

and became a mighty people in the Netherlands. 
9 




SIMON MENNO. 



108 



THE PRINCE OF ORANGE. 



At last the Prince of Orange came to their rescue. "When he was declared 
governor, in the place of the Duke of Alva, William said to the Baptists, ' Do you 
make no demand ? ' They answered, ' Nothing but the friendship of your grace, if 
God grants to you the government of our Netherlands.' The final result of his 
determination, against all opposition, was, that in 1579 Article XIII. of the 
Union of Utrecht declared : 'Every one shall be free in the practice of his religious 




BAPTISM AT RHEIKSBERG. 



belief, and that, in accordance with the peace of Ghent, no man shall be held or ex- 
amined on account of matters of religion.' 

Most of the Dutch and German historians accord to the Baptists of the Nether- 
lands a high antiquity and a fine Christian character, and Dr. Keller says, in his 
recent work : ' The more I examine the documents of that time at my command, the 
more I am astonished at the extent of the diffusion of Anabaptist views, an extent 
of which no other investigator has had any knowledge.' 



CHAPTER V. 

THE WALDENSIANS. 

THE cut on page 295 embodies the several Waldensian symbols, and portrays at a 
glance their struggles and triumphs. The first is a candle lighted in the night, 
with the motto : ' Light Shines in Darkness.' The flame is enkindled by one of the 
seven stars, which is fed by light from above. The second is a burning bush uncon- 
sumed, to show that their fiery persecutions left them undestroyed. The third is a lily 
growing amongst thorns, yet unchoked and rising above them — the sign of delicate 
weakness calmly rejoicing over annoying difficulties. The fourth is the anvil of 
truth, beaten by the hammers of its foes ; Church and State, foreign and home 
enemies try to split it, but break their own hammers. The fifth is the serene Wal- 
densian, standing bolt upright ; he despises the bishop's miter, crook and crosier, 
with the pope's tiara and rosary, and tramples them under foot. 

Walter Mapes, an Englishman of the twelfth century and a favorite of 
Henry II., was sent on a mission to the papal court, and first met the Waldensians 
at the Lateran Council, A. D. 1179. He calls them ' Valdesii, from their primate, 
Waldo,' Peter Waldo, whose name answers closely to the English name Wood.i 
There is fair ground for the belief that an Evangelical people lived in the isolated 
Cottian Alps before the twelfth century, but the evidence is too scanty and frag- 
mentary to be used with confidence for historical purposes. Some Waldensian writ- 
ers think that they can trace their origin back to the days of Constantine and even 
to the Apostles, but Dieckhoff and Herzog have shown that this claim will not 
bear critical investigation. The ablest modern historians do not find them beyond 
the great reformer Waldo, an ideal figure of whom, in merchant's dress, now stands 
in the great Luther monument at Worms. 

This man of God was born at Vaux, in Dauphine, on the Rhone, and became 
a rich merchant at Lyons, where he lived in a street known for generations after his 
banishment as ' Cursed Street.' The sudden death of a friend, who fell by his side 
at a feast, led him to consecrate himself to Christ, A. D. 1160. While his heart 
was touched by pondering upon the vanity of earthly things, he joined a crowd in 
the street who were listening to the song of a troubadour, whose theme was the 
blessed death of St. Alexis. He first took the singer home with him, and then 
visited a learned divine to ask more about the way to heaven, who replied : ' There 
are many roads to heaven.' But Peter asked him, ' Which is the surest % ' and was 
answered, ' If thou wilt be perfect, go sell all that thou hast and give to the poor.' 



1 io 



A BIBLE FOE THE PEOPLE. 



That day he made the Gospel his only rule and literally obeyed the injunction. He 
paid his creditors, gave his house, field and vineyard to his wife, provided for his 
daughters, and then spent three days in the week relieving the wants of the poor 
in the public square. Many thought him insane, but he said : ' I am not mad, as 
you suppose, I am aveng- 
ing myself of my enemies 
(his wealth), who have re- 
duced me to such servitude 
as made me more mindful 
of them than of God.' 

He also put his money 
to a use uncommon in 
those days. He employed 
Stephen of Ansa and Ber- 
nard Ydross to translate 
the Gospels from the Latin 
YuWte of Jerome into the 
Eomance dialect for the 
common people, as well as 
the most inspiring passages 
from the Christian Fa- 
thers. Then, filled with 
the love of Christ, lie 
took preaching tours and 
sent his converts on the 
same errand. These three 
acts were prophetic of the 
whole Waldensian career : 
the voluntary poverty of 
its preachers ; the free use 
of the Bible ; the right 
of laymen to preach the 
Gospel. No other layman 
except "William the Con- 
queror, Peter's contempo- 
rary, had ventured on such 
work, and no sect had yet 

commenced its existence with a popular translation of the New Testament; a bold 
step which soon aroused opposition. 

Peter did not at first call in question any doctrine of the Pomish com- 
munion, nor did he contemplate separation from it, his simple purpose being to 




WALDENSIAN SYMBOLS. 



WALBENSIANS NOT HERETICS. 1 1 1 

•win men to a holy life. Hence, he and his followers were not treated as ' here- 
tics ; ' but the Bishop of Lyons demanded why they preached and expounded the 
Scriptures without Church authority? They replied, according to Stephen of Bor- 
bone : ' We ought to obey God rather than man. Christ commanded his disciples 
to preach.' They said but little at this time about the superstitions and corruptions 
of the Catholics. This they left to the fidelity of those in that communion, who, 
like themselves, wished to see the spiritual life of that body revived. Amongst 
these, Peter Vidal said : ' The pope and his false doctors have put the Holy Church 
in such distress, that God himself is incensed at it. Thanks to their sins and follies, 
the heretics have arisen ; for when they give the example of iniquity, it is hard to find 
any who will abstain.' And Pierre Cardinal exclaimed : ' The priests grasp on every 
hand, and are reckless of the sorrow they cause. The whole world is theirs, they 
make themselves its masters. Usurpers toward some, generous toward others, they 
employ indulgences and use deceit, they give absolutions and they make good cheer. 
Now they have recourse to prayers, and now pursue their ends by murders. Some 
they seduce with God, the rest with the devil.' The crime of Waldo and his follow- 
ers was that they were ' schismatics,' because they established a new apostolate, and 
usurped the office of preaching without papal authority. The real trouble was 
that the common people would listen no longer to the greedy, lazy and immoral 
priests, who addressed them in an unknown tongue and ground them down with tithes. 
These self-sacrificing, new teachers brought them the Gospel in their mother dialect, 
claimed no authority over them, preached Bible truth without money or price, and 
recommended the whole by godly lives. Whether they intended to undermine the 
hierarchy or not, the priesthood saw the peril, took the alarm, and plied its eccle- 
siastical authority to save its existence. 

Unable to persuade and powerless to compel them to stop, the Bishop excom- 
municated them A. D. 1176 for preaching without his authority. Instead of 
accepting this excision, they appealed for redress to Pope Alexander III., and 
because he wanted them to remain in the Church he laid the matter before the 
Lateran Council at Eome in 1179. He praised Peter, for his vow of poverty, 
embraced him, and would have permitted him to preach, provided that he main- 
tained the faith of the Fathers Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory and Jerome. For 
this forbearance Waldo was indebted to Cardinal Pulha ; and thus encouraged he 
sent two of his disciples to the council to secure fuller recognition, as he was not 
satisfied with the right of preaching himself. The pope tui-ned these over to Walter 
Mapes for examination, who says of them: 'There were brought to me the two 
Waldenses, who seemed to be the chief of their sect, to dispute with me, and shut 
my mouth as one who spoke evil. I confess I sat in fear lest in so great a Council 
the privilege of speaking might be denied me, seeing that it was at the request of 
sinners.' But he soon overcame his fear, with good zest began to make light of the 
simple preachers, and even ridiculed them before the Council because they avowed 



112 LAY PRE A CHING. 

that Chr.'st had sent them to preach and clothed them with power by the Holy 
Spirit. He, however, betrayed trepidation, for he said : ' If we let them in, we shall 
be driven forth ourselves.' They were virtually condemned, for they were granted 
permission to preach only on condition that the local priest requested it, a thing 
that he was slow to ask. The reason given for this prohibition was : ' That the Roman 
Church cannot endure your preaching.' This enforced silence made them all the 
bolder : ' Did not Christ send us ? ' said they, ' why should his Church hinder us ? ' 
And they went every-where preaching the Word. 

This, of course, could not be endured, and in 1183-84 a special council was held 
at Verona by Pope Lucius III., in the presence of the Emperor Barbarossa, ' to 
bind in the chain of perpetual anathema those who presumed to preach, publicly 
or privately, without the authority of the bishop.' Though excommunicated, 
they were held as less perverse than other disowned ones, their sentence stating 
that they presumed to preach without any ' authority received either from the 
Apostolic See or from the bishops of their respective dioceses.' This ban did not 
class them with the Catharists, with whom they had no part ; and often when the 
priests had controversies with these, they appealed to the Waldensians with their 
ready store of Scriptural truth to help them. Even as late as 1190 the Archbishop 
of Narbonne held a colloquy with them to win them back. Their first great con- 
test, then, concerned the right of lay preaching and not doctrine. Pope Innocent, 
their great enemy, expressly says, long afterward, that they ' would usurp the office 
of preaching' as an innovation. On the ground of doctrine, they were not ob- 
noxious to Rome at that time. Yet when Lucius anathematized them they were 
obliged to fly in every direction. Waldo, with one band of his disciples, fled to 
the rugged fastnesses of the Cottian Alps, the dividing line between Dauphine in 
Southern France and Piedmont in Northern Italy. These first settled in Dauphine, 
on the French side, but soon crossed the border to the Italian. They labored, how- 
ever, in both fields, and the great body of the people soon embraced their doctrines. 

Piedmont had five valleys, but the mountain tract on the southern side had 
only three. In these gorges, caverns, passes and dizzy peaks, their descendants 
still survive, after a period of seven hundred years. Their first real settlements 
were in the thinly populated and half cultivated valleys of Angrogna and San 
Martino, where the Romans erected an arch, calling it the ' Gate of Italy.' The 
house of the Count Lucerna, the ruler of the land, had on its escutcheon the words : 
' The light shines in darkness,' which became the Waldensian motto. Their greatest 
triumphs were in Italy, in the Duchy of Savoy, on the eastern slopes of the Cot- 
tians ; and their secondary were on the western, under the scepter of France. This 
Count may have favored the new settlers, but the Benedictine monks, who had a 
monastery and lands in Savoy, were greatly alarmed at the inroad of this flock of 
emigrants. In time, however, the Dukes of Savoy assailed them, but the Kings 
of France were too much engaged to trouble these godly mountaineers, and so they 



WALDENSIAN DISPERSION. 1 1 3 

found refuge under one government when the other persecuted them, flight being 
their only safeguard. For this reason, in part, the history of the Italian Walden- 
sians is far more complicated than that of the French, and more full of adventure 
by invasion, defense, defeat, suffering and triumph. For a time their very 
obscurity protected them against the curses of Eome. After a while "Waldo turned 
to the North, but his ferocious persecutors drove him into Bohemia, where it 
seems likely that, as an old man, he finished his work in peace and fell asleep 
in Jesus. 

The anathema of Lucian, A. D. 1183-84, was followed in 1192 by a demand 
from the Bishop of Turin that all who found a "Waldensian should bring him to 
his court bound with fetters to be punished, and his successor followed in his steps. 
But constant persecution sharpened their appetite for the truth and they soon began 
to fall into so-called ' heresy.' Gradually they claimed the right of private judg- 
ment in the interpretation of the Scriptures, and came to oppose some doctrines 
and practices of the Church of Borne touching the power of the clergy, the sacra- 
ments and ecclesiastical authority. They resented the yoke of the pope and the 
bishops ; asserted the right of laymen, and even of women, to preach ; avowed 
that the wickedness of the priest neutralized the effect of the ordinances ; declared 
that confession might be made to a good layman, and that absolution from him was 
effective. They, also, like the Catharists, denied the oblation of the mass, all oaths, war, 
begging and capital punishment ; while a few of them went so far as to deny infant 
baptism. It is of this class that Du Fin says, they regarded ' The washings of infants ' 
as ' of no avail to them ; the sureties do not understand what they say to the priest.' 

Persecution soon scattered small bodies of them in every direction. Individuals 
wandered where they could, and little companies took refuge in various countries, 
soon becoming the founders of small communities — who, for convenience, we may 
call the Waldensians of the Dispersion. Sometimes these bands merged into 
other sects, or they grew up a separate people, constantly developing new views ; and 
at last they became much more radical protestants against Borne than the original 
Romance Waldensians. Failure to make this distinction clear, and even sharp, will 
lead us to confound one "Waldensian sect with another, and to mix their doctrines 
and practices in a medley of confusion ; for scarcely two sections of them believed 
and practiced the same things throughout. Nor did any one class of "Waldensians 
hold the same doctrines and follow the same rites at all times. When we lose sight 
of these changes and variations we fall both into confusion and contradiction con- 
cerning this whole people. Those of the Dispersion had so increased to the West 
as far as Spain, in 1192, that Alphonso, King of Aragon, issued a decree expelling 
them from his realm, and they were treated nowhere else with greater severity. 
Edict after edict, the last generally the worst, drove them out. The wrath of God 
and the charge of treason were launched upon all who shielded a Waldensian, gave 
him food, heard him preach, or treated him kindly. The king commanded : ' Let 



1 14 FOUND IN SPAIN AND METZ. , 

this our edict be read on the Sabbath by the clergy in all cities, forts and villages of 
our kingdom, and be enforced by our vicars, bailiffs and judges. Any person, noble 
or not, who shall find a Waldensian anywhere in our kingdom, after three days' 
notice has been given to leave, may injure him in any way, that will not mutilate 
his body or take his life, without fear of punishment, but rather with the assurance 
of receiving our favor. We grant the Waldensians till All Saints' Day to leave or 
begin to leave the land, or expose themselves to the risk of being plundered and 
scourged.' In the face of this edict, which was renewed by Alphonso's son, Peter II., 
the Waldensians continued to spread even as far as Seville. Peter's son, James I., 
1227, at Pope Gregory's request, established an Inquisition which caused the flight 
of many into Castile. They were tracked to its valleys, thrust into prison and 
severely punished ; but not one yielded, and the king himself carried wood to the 
pile and set fire to the martyrs. Thereafter any one who heard the Waldensians 
preach, knelt with them in prayer, gave them a kiss or called them ' good men,' was 
suspected and punished. l 

Another body of the Dispersed Waldensians was found at Metz, in Northern 
France, as early as 1199, when the bishop of that city informed Pope Innocent III 
of the trouble which they made him. He sought the pope's advice in the matter, 
telling him that both in the city and diocese a large number of laymen and women 
were reading the Bible in the Gallic tongue and preaching from place to place. 
Some of them had come from Montpellier, bringing translations with them which 
they used in secret assemblies. When the parish priests undertook to correct these 
things they spurned their interference, telling them plainly that the Bible was better 
than any thing that they could give them. The pope's reply against the little flock 
said, that ' Although the desire to understand the Scriptures and edify one another 
out of them is not blamable, but rather commendable ; still, he could not favor the 
secrecy of their meetings.' He warned them against Pharisaic pride, and threat- 
ened them with discipline if they would not hear his fatherly exhortations. But 
the ' heretics' went on with their Bible teachings; and a delegation of abbots came 
from Eome, A. D. 1200. who dispersed the assemblies, burned the Bibles and, 
according to the Chronicles of Albericus, ' extirpated the sect.' In order to stop 
these Christ-like proceedings of the Waldensians, the fourth Lateran Council, A. D. 
1215, and the Council of Toulouse, 1229, forbade laymen to read the Bible either 
in the language of the people or in the Latin, and the Council of Tarragona, 1242, 
bound the prohibition on the clergy also. 

The Waldensians of the Dispersion became established in various cities, as 
Geneva, Aquileia, with others in Switzerland and Italy ; and, in fact, they stretched 
all the way from Aragon to Milan and Florence, and dotted Lower Germany. The 
Bishop of Turin was greatly disturbed by some of them about 1209. He had been 
a Benedictine Abbot, and took advantage of the passage of the Emperor Otto IV., 
on his way to be crowned at Eome, to secure the right of expelling the Walden- 



STRASBURG— 'HERETICS' HITCH' 115 

sians who were 'sowing tares in his diocese,' and of expurgating every thing that 
contradicted the Catholic faith. But the Counts of Lucema befriended them and 
secured the free exercise of their religion, in the treaty made with the Duke of 
Savoy, in 1233. This protected them for many years. 

In 1212 a congregation of five hundred Waldensians was discovered at Strasburg. 
At first the bishop of that city sought to reason them out of their position against the 
Catholic faith ; bat such was their ready use of Scripture that disputations always 
inured to their advantage. Then he proclaimed that all of them who would not 
forsake their errors should be put to death by fire without delay. Many recanted, 
surrendered their books, and reported to him that they had three chief centers and 
three leaders— in Milan, in Bohemia, and on the ground in Strasburg. These lead- 
ers, they said, were not clothed with authority like the pope, but owed their influ- 
ence to the personal confidence reposed in them by their brethren. One of their 
chief duties was to collect money for the poor. Eighty persons in all, amongst 
whom were twenty -three women and twelve preachers, would not surrender their 
faith. John, the Strasburg leader, answered in the name of all. His appeal to 
Scripture could not be overthrown, and when his persecutors would apply the test 
of red-hot iron to see if he were sent of God, he replied : ' Thou shalt not tempt 
the Lord thy God.' 'Ah, he does not want to burn his fingers,' scornfully cried the 
monks. ' I have the word of God,' he answered, ' and for that I would not only 
burn my fingers but my whole body.' All who stood with him were put to death. 
Before their execution they were charged with all sorts of heresy, to which John 
replied from the Scriptures, moving the by-standers to tears. And when the final 
demand was made : 'Will you maintain your belief?' he replied, ' Yes, we will.' 
They were then led, amid the cries of kindred and friends, to the church-yard, where 
a broad and deep ditch had been dug. Into this they were driven, wood was piled 
around them and they perished in the flames. To this day men tremble when the 
'Heretics' Ditch ' is pointed out in Strasburg. 2 

We find another body of Dispersed Waldensians, A. D. 1231, in the provinces 
of the Danube. They were subjected to a terrible persecution for three years by 
bloody Conrad of Marburg. An extended account of others is preserved in a ' Chron- 
icle of 1260,' by an anonymous writer. They lived in the diocese of Passau, which 
was embraced in the Duchy of Austria. He gives the names of forty-two towns and 
villages in the diocese, some of them upon the Danube and others close to the borders 
of Bohemia, where Waldensian congregations were found. The Jesuit Gretser, 
in editing this report, omits the honest explanations which it gives for the spread of 
the Dispersed Waldensians. The manuscript lays it to the impure life of the priests, 
to the conversion of the sacraments into gain, to the multiplication of masses, to the 
prurient use of the confessional and to pretended miracles ; such as, tears of blood flow- 
ing from a picture, the lighting of a lamp from heaven, the exaltation of false relics 
as those of angels, the sweat of Christ, and passing off the bones of oxen as those 



116 THE PBEGI0U8 PEARL. 

of saints. Great fault is also found with the adoration of the pope as God upon 
earth, greater than men and equal to angels, infallible and sinless. An additional 
cause for public favor was found in the Waldensians themselves ; for the author says 
that they were content in poverty, avoided lying, profanity and theft, and were dil- 
igent in business. They were shoemakers, weavers and other artisans ; temperate 
in eating and drinking, and they led godly lives. Their converts were made 
by the Bible and religious books. They went as peddlers to a cottage or a noble- 
man's castle, offering fabrics or jewelry for sale ; and when asked, if they had any 
thing else, they answered : ' Yes, great rarities ; I have one precious stone through 
which you can see God, and another that kindles love to him in the heart.' With 
that these peddlers brought out the precious roll of Holy Writ. Whittier, our gentle 
Quaker poet, has beautifully pictured these heavenly, traveling Waldensian mer- 
chantmen with goodly pearls, thus : 

' O, lady fair, I have yet a gem, which a purer luster flings 
Than the diamond flash of the jeweled crown on the lofty brow of kings; 
A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue shall not decay, 
Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a blessing on thy way.' 
The cloud went off from the pilgrim's brow as a small, meager book, 
Unchased with gold or gem of cost, from his folding robe he took. 
' Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it prove as much to thee. 
Nay, keep thy gold, I ask it not, for the word of God is free.' 

Still another reason for their increase is found in that they were loyal to their 
prince and country. About this time a violent contest between Pope Innocent IV. 
and the Emperor Frederick II. compelled every Austrian to choose between his civil 
and his ecclesiastical allegiance. As Bishop Rudiger took sides with the Emperor and 
smote the papal legate with his fist, love for the pope was turned into hate in many 
hearts. In these political convulsions, when the Inquisition and the pope were set 
at naught, every papal interdict brought a Waldensian jubilee and the sect spread 
rapidly. Frederick the Warlike, Duke of Austria, who died in 1246, unlike the 
Emperor, had shown favor to the Catholics by laying violent hands on the Waldensians. 

But no class of the Dispersed Waldensians call for more important notice than 
those of Lombardy. Those who settled in and about Milan were known as the 
' Poor Italians,' and were a mixture with dissenters already on the ground. Our 
interest in them is increased from the fact that many of the Waldensians of Lom- 
bardy were really the followers of Arnold of Brescia, of whom we have spoken. 
For as the followers of Waldo were scattered abroad after his death, so the Arnold- 
ists were driven every-where after the martyrdom of their leader. These, with the 
' Humble Men,' so called, of Lombardy, multiplied ' like fishes,' and grew in favor 
with the magistrates of Milan, who gave them a piece of ground for a meeting- 
house, and allowed them to rebuild it after the archbishop had destroyed their first 
structure. Those who were merged into this body were numbered with the Wal- 




THE FORBIDDEN 1 BOOK. 






WALDENSIANS ON BAPTISM. 1 1 7 

densians of Lombardy. In 1877 Preger published at Munich what is possibly the 
oldest Waldensian document extant, which throws some light on them. It gives a 
colloquy between six delegates of the original Romance and as many of the Lombard 
Waldensians. These held a conference on their general affairs at Bergamo, May, 
1218; and this account thereof was sent a few years afterward by the Lombardy 
brethren to the party in Germany. 

All classes of Waldensians held some things in common amongst themselves, 
also with the Petrobrusians and with certain of the Catharists. ' Yet generally 
they are confounded with each other, for they are all supposed to have been alike ; 
and so we fail to reach their differences. For example, the Council of Toulouse 
and the second and third Lateran Councils launched decrees against those who rejected 
infant baptism, Catharists and others, some suppose including the Waldensians. 
But that of Toulouse, 1119, and the second Lateran, 1139, were held before the 
Waldensians existed ; as according to all modern history they originated with Peter 
Waldo in 11G0. Again, the third Lateran, 1179, as well as these preceding councils, 
condemned the Cathari, but not the Waldensians. Dr. Wall thinks that the Bap- 
tists of Cologne, 1092, came from- Dauphine, where Peter of Bruis had preached ; 
and if he is correct, then they were numbered with the Cathari and condemned by 
the same councils. Mistakes have arisen touching the views of the Romance Wal- 
densians on infant baptism, from wrong translations and uses of the ' Antichrist,' 
the ' Noble Lesson,' the 'Minor Catechism,' and the 'Twelfth Article' with the 
forged date of 1120. If they opposed infant baptism it is unaccountable that their 
literature, running through four centuries, gives no formal argument against it, 
and no accompanying demand for the baptism of believers only. And further, 
their enemy Pope Innocent in his letter No. 143 says, ' That the Waldenses err in 
the faith, or depart from sound doctrine, thou hast not expressed to us.' Yet at 
that moment no departure from the faith of the Catholics was more frightful than 
the doctrine that infants would be saved if they died unbaptized ; and they enforced 
this doctrine by the most terrible decrees of their councils, but not by name, against 
the Waldensians. On the other side, too, this subject is full of perplexity. For if 
the Romance Waldensians actually practiced infant baptism from the first, it is 
very singular that they have left no argument for its authority, no trace of its de- 
fense, and no ritual for its observance, in all their early literature, while they 
positively rejected the Consolamentum. 

When we attempt to supplement their own testimony by that of their con- 
temporaries, we unfortunately find little to relieve this perplexity. Almost all 
Roman Catholic writers agree with Cardinal Hosius, who says : ' The Waldenses 
rejected infant baptism.' Addis and Arnold declare of them : 'As to baptism, they 
said that the washing of infants was of no avail to them.' 3 This impression is 
deepened by the fact that Farel, CEcolampadius and others, at the time of the 
Reformation, made strenuous efforts to convince the Waldensians of Eastern 



1 1 8 TESTIMONY OF ENEMIES. 

Dauphine and Savoy of the righteousness of infant baptism ; as if the more 
zealous of them still rejected that doctrine. Dr. Keller thinks that they com- 
monly practiced adult baptism and allowed their children to be baptized, saying : 
' Since the "Waldenses have always fundamentally (on fundamental principles) held 
fast to baptism on faith, where they neglected it they did so under the pressure 
of the constrained position in which they found themselves.' 4 Certain it is that 
their enemies, to whom we are indebted for the earliest account of their faith 
and practice, use strong language on this subject. But they fail to tell us clearly 
of what Waldensian branch they speak, while sometimes the fair inference is that 
they speak of the Romance and at other times of the Dispersed bodies, as those of 
the Rhine and other parts of Germany. Take the following examples : 

I. Ermengard, about A. D. 1192, says: 'They pretend that this sacrament 
cannot be conferred except upon those who demand it with their own lips ; hence 
they infer the other error, that baptism does not profit infants who receive it.' 5 

II. Alanus, who died A. D. 1203, appears to include the Waldensians amongst 
those who reject infant baptism, and yet it is not positive that he does ; although 
he is writing against them. He represents those whom he denounces as saying 
that ' baptism avails nothing before years of discretion are reached. Infants are not 
profited by it, because they do not believe. Hence a candidate is usually asked 
whether he believes in God, the Father Omnipotent. Baptism profits an unbeliever 
as little as it does an infant. "Why should those be baptized who cannot be 
instructed ? ' 6 

III. Stephen of Borbone says, A. D. 1225 : ' One argument of their error is, 
that baptism does not profit little children to their salvation, who have neither the 
motive nor the act of faith, as it is said in the latter part of Mark, he who will not 
believe will be condemned.' 7 

IV. Pseudo Reinerius, A. D. 1230-1250 : ' Concerning baptism, they say, the 
Catechism is of no value. Again, that the washing that is given to infants is of no 
value. Again, that the sponsors do not understand what they answer to the priest. 
They do not regard compaternity ' (i. e., the relation of sponsors). 8 

Y. Moneta, the Dominican, who wrote before A. D., 1240 : ' They maintain 
the nullity of the baptism of infants, and affirm that no one can be saved before at- 
taining the age of reason.' 9 Hahn, in quoting Moneta, makes him say: 'These 
heretics charge that the Roman Catholic Church baptizes first and teaches after- 
ward, while the Church of Christ taught at first before baptizing ; also, that Christ 
and his Apostles never baptized any one without faith and reason.' 

VI. One of the Austrian Inquisitors, A. D. 1260 : ' Concerning baptism, some 
err in saying that little children are not saved by baptism, for the Lord says, he that 
believeth and is baptized shall be saved. Now, a child does not yet believe, conse- 
quently is not saved.' (By baptism, he must mean.) ' Some of them baptize over again, 
others lay on hands without baptism.' 10 

VII. David of Augsburg, A. D. 1256-1272 : ' They say that a man is then truly, 
for the first time, baptized, when he is brought into their heresy. But some say 
that baptism does not profit little children, because they are never able actually to 
believe.' u 

It may be that some of these writers did not intend these remarks to apply to 
the "Waldensians alone, or if so, to all of them without exception. Some of the early 
members of the sect may have earnestly rejected infant baptism, while it is certain 



SOME WALDEXSIAN BAPTISTS. 119 

that many of the Dispersed did and practiced only the baptism of believers. Clearly 
those of the Romance class, who united with the Reformers in the sixteenth century, 
held few Baptist sentiments which made either party hesitate at the union. The em- 
bassy sent to Bucer and (Ecolampadius, in 1531, shows how these communities stood 
with Rome on that subject. They really came to learn of the Reformers what their 
contest with Rome meant ; for they did not understand the full difference between 
the contestants, and wished to be instructed. A great Council of the Waldensians 
was held at Angrogna, in Savoy, 1532, to which the Swiss Protestants sent Farel 
and Olivetan, and then a new departure was taken. Henceforth the Piedmontese 
Waldensians were joined to the Swiss Protestant Pedobaptists ; although a minority 
of the Council refused to be bound by its decision, though not on purely Baptist 
grounds. One of the weaknesses of the Swiss Protestants has always been that they 
have spent their strength in asserting that Pedobaptism is valid ; as if they had 
derived the first practical benefit from it in their struggle with Rome ; and as if this 
hugging of a limb of popery were really necessary to an efficient protest against 
the other errors of that dark system. At the time that this union took place the 
Reformers were bitterly persecuting the so-called Anabaptists, even unto death, for 
rejecting infant baptism. 

There was, however, a remarkable association between the "Waldensians of the 
Dispersion and the Baptists in the sixteenth century, both in doctrine and practice. 
Mosheim and Limborch mark this likeness, the latter saying : ' To speak candidly 
what I think, of all the modern sects of Christians, the Dutch Baptists most resem- 
ble both the Albigenses and Waldenses.' 12 Indeed, in some cases, the Baptists evi- 
dently sprang from the Waldensians, and every-where in that century pushed resist- 
ance of infant baptism to the front ; so that it was made the chief ground of their 
martyrdom by both Protestants and Catholics. Goebel, in his ' History of Christian 
Life in the Rhine Provinces,' says that wherever in Germany, before the Reformation, 
there were large bodies of Waldensians, there, during the Reformation, large bodies 
of ' Anabaptists ' sprang up. At that time this people alarmed all Europe. Every 
Church and State stood in awe of their increase, and this panic united all their foes 
in the ignoble bonds of bloody persecution. While some Protestants denied the 
doctrine of baptismal regeneration, not believing that unbaptized children, dying, 
perished ; yet they were as firmly resolved to burn all who cast infant baptism aside, 
as were those who lodged the salvation of babes in their baptism. 

On one point more the Waldensians of the Dispersion were one with the Anti- 
pedobaptists. They insisted upon a regenerate Church membership marked by bap- 
tism upon their personal faith ; while in later times, at least, most of the Romance 
Waldensians became Pedobaptists and semi-Romanists upon that point. The Bap- 
tists of to-day and the original Waldensians have much in common. They sought 
the restoration of Apostolic Church life in a true Christian character and in a holy 
Church membership ; they followed the literal interpretation of Scripture ; their 



120 THEIR CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 

priesthood was that of believers and not of a hierarchy, men renewed in heart and 
life ; they rejected the error of regeneration by baptism ; they believed in and prac- 
ticed immersion only, even if their babes were baptized ; and they made holiness 
of heart and life the point on which every thing turned concerning the living ma- 
terial of which the Church of Christ must be composed. 

As to the Church government of the Waldensians, it is necessary to speak with great 
caution. The French Waldensians held to the Episcopal form by three orders, bishops, 
priests and deacons ; but Reinerius says of the sect in general : ' They say, the bishops, 
clergy and other religious orders are no better than the scribes and Pharisees.' This re- 
lates to character, however, but they did not despise a true Christian ministry ; for the 
6ame writer, who was a resident of Lombardy, says that there they had ' elders.' Yet 
there is nothing to show that they had any order of ministers amongst them as a uni- 
versal thing ; or even regularly located pastors, as we should deem them. They 
had ' barbs ' or preachers, but on the principle of the seventy disciples whom Jesus 
sent forth two by two. These were not divided into orders, but into three moral 
classes, from which the mistake has arisen concerning an Episcopal form of govern- 
ment. They had the preaching class of celibates, the contemplative class of celi- 
bates, a sort of monks and nuns, and the preaching class of married men. Waldo 
and his preachers committed large portions of the Bible to memory, and going into 
the highways, hedges, streets and lanes of their cities and villages they repeated 
these passages, explaining and enforcing them. Whether men and women were 
learned or illiterate, they taught them the gospels by heart and, in turn, sent them 
out to teach the same. These went from house to house teaching and preaching 
wherever they could find hearers. They have ' No fixed dwelling place, but go 
about two by two, barefoot, clad in penitent's raiment, like the Apostles stripped 
of all, following the Christ who was stripped of all.' 13 Preger says that all ' Ecclesi- 
astical authority was vested in the congregation, so that there was no room for 
bishops ; ' and, of course, it was their only court of discipline and appeal. w In this 
fraternity of preachers, in the absence of orders distinction was made between them as 
major and minor. This arose from the custom of sending them out in twos, a 
young man and an older, that the younger might learn from the elder. Reinerius 
represents them as holding that all men in Christ's Church stand on an exact parity, 
no one being greater than another, and that the sacrament of orders is a nullity. 
The account of the conference of the twelve delegates held at Bergamo shows as 
much. The first question which they were called to settle was occasioned by Waldo's 
wish that no one should be put over all the societies. They agreed to a sort of 
general superintendency as most conducive to peace and prosperity in all their 
communities. The superintendents were to be chosen for a definite period, or it 
might be for life. 

It was further determined that either new converts or tried friends might be 
appointed as preachers. Waldo had prejudice against the co-operative communities 



METHODS OF LABOR. 121 

to which the Lombardy brethren belonged, fearing the undue influence of prosperity 
upon them. The community system they laid aside, and after that, preachers and people 
alike were allowed to earn money. Their system of preaching shaped itself after the 
order of an itinerancy. Every year their barbs or preachers met to confer about the gen- 
eral interests of their people, much as the Society of Friends do now, and to ' station 
the preachers ' as the Methodists call similar work. This they denominated ' changing 
the twos ; ' for except the infirm and old, they remained from but one to three years 
in a place. These preachers were poor and made poverty a virtue both of necessity 
and choice, and small sums of money were given to them for their support. But 
they had no regular salary, and at their annual meeting they divided money amongst 
the poor who were not preachers and amongst themselves, as each needed. If any 
of these traveling missionaries had fallen into grievous sins through the year, they 
were expelled. If any had committed lighter faults, they were admonished and for- 
given. And when all had asked forgiveness of each other, they went out to do the 
work of another year. 

George Morel, one of their preachers, details all this and more to Bucer and 
CEcolampadius, A. D. 1530, in these words : ' So also we go forth once a year, to 
visit our people in their homes, for they dwell in the mountains, in various hamlets 
and villages, and we hear one after another in secret confession. . . . Our people 
for the most part are a simple peasantry, gaining their livelihood by agriculture, 
scattered by the frequent persecutions in many places, and separated from each 
other by great spaces. For from one end to the other is eight hundred miles. 
They are every-where subject to the civil magistrates and the priests of the unbe- 
lievers. Yet, by the grace of God, it never or rarely happens that a Waldensian 
man or woman is arrested or punished by the said authorities, or that one visits 
houses of ill fame.' In this passage the word ' milh ' (miles) has been mistaken for 
mille (thousands), and some unknown writer has put the figures 800,000 into the 
margin of the manuscript ; from which blunder all sorts of fabulous numbers have 
been ascribed to the Romance Waldensians, while the valleys in which they lived 
could not be made to support 100,000 people at the most. When, therefore, we 
read in Reinerius and others of "Waldensian ' churches,' we are obliged to take the 
phrase in a modified sense ; for in truth they seem to have been less of a sect, in the 
modern sense of the term, than a disjointed series of congregations or societies of 
religious men. According to the showing of Herzog, these congregations were 
not all alike either amongst the Romance or the Dispersed. They appear to have had 
no fixed ecclesiastical organization, for which they each claimed Gospel authority ; 
but they left their plans free to be modified by their trying circumstances to any re- 
quired extent. It is tolerably evident that they were religious bodies without due 
constitutional form, serving only the ends of a godly brotherhood in brotherly love, 
rather than the purposes of strict supervision, watchcare and extension. All can 

see from the circumstances of the case that it would have been extremely difficult, 
10 



122 THEIR RELATIONS TO ROME. 

if not impossible, to keep up regular and visible Church organizations with the 
laws of the State sternly against them. They could maintain amongst themselves 
an understood separation from the Catholic hierarchy, but they had not the civil 
right to avow an open rupture with Kome, and to perfect an open organized 
separation. 

Indeed, it is questionable whether they did not consider themselves as a body of 
holy men still within the Church of Kome, rather than as separate churches, in the 
proper sense of the word, something after the Wesleyan order of societies within the 
Established Church of England during the life of Wesley and long afterward. That 
Church persecuted them bitterly, and yet Wesley and his immediate followers went to 
it regularly for the ordinances. There is a singular confusion in the statement of Rein- 
erius and others on this point. They charge the Waldensians with arrogance for as- 
suming that they were the only Church of Christ, and in the same breath they charge 
them with craft for remaining in the Catholic communion. For example, a Roman 
Inquisitor who claims that ' he had exact knowledge of the Waldensians,' says : ' They 
communica.te and administer the sacraments in the vulgar tongue.' And again : ' They 
celebrate the Eucharist in their household cups and say that the corporal, or cloth 
on which the host is laid, is no holier than the cloth of their breeches.' Then, 
with marked inconsistency, Reinerius makes these two separate statements, namely : 
1 They do not believe the body and blood of Christ to be the true sacrament, but 
only blessed bread which, by a figure only, is called the body of Christ. . . . This sac- 
rament they celebrate in their assemblies, repeating the words of the Gospel at their 
table, and participating together, in imitation of Christ's Supper.' Yet after that 
he adds, either truly or falsely : ' They frequent our churches, are present at divine 
service, offer at the altar, confess to the priests, observe the Church fasts, celebrate 
festivals, reverently bowing their heads, though in the meantime they scoff at all 
these institutions of the Church, looking upon them as profane and hurtful.' Last 
of all he makes this remarkable statement which seems to cover both the others, 
namely : that they hold ' a great show of truth, for that they live righteously before 
men, and believe all things well of God, and all the articles which are contained in 
the creed, only they blaspheme and hate the Church of Rome.' 

We must either throw his testimony aside as one tissue of falsehood, or believe 
that some of the original Waldensians did accept such offices from the' Romish 
priests, possibly from fear. But we cannot reject this evidence, for Morel himself 
states to the Reformers : ' We abominate the masses, but we attend them, and re- 
ceive the host at the hands of the Roman priests.' This the priests would not object 
to, for they did not look upon them as an ecclesiastical body, but as religious 
guilds of weavers. Yet they cursed them again and again, for between A. D. 
1307-1323 the Inquisition of France passed six hundred and seven sentences against 
heretics, and ninety-two of them were against the Waldensians under one name or 
another. Besides, David of Augsburg, A. D. 1256-1272, declares that in his day they 



THEIR LOVE OF SCRIPTURE. 123 

attended the confessions, fasts, feasts and sacraments of the Catholic Church. And at 
the time of the Reformation, (Ecolampadius lays the same charge at their door : ' We 
hear that you, through fear of persecution, have denied and concealed your faith to that 
degree, that you hold communion with the unbelievers, and go to those masses which 
are only worthy of abhorrence.' He then tells them that they had better suffer ' in 
the abyss of hell ' than endure against their consciences the blasphemies of the 
godless. And, according to Gillies, their own historian, they only gave up all fel- 
lowship with the Catholics when at the synod of Angrogna, A. D. 1532, the 
Reformers refused to unite with them on any other condition. But the Bohemian 
Waldensians, as late as 1573, gave as the reason why they had never united with 
some of their own Waldensian people elsewhere, that ' for the sake of peace they 
attended the papal mass, which they knew to be idolatrous.' It is more reasonable 
to apply this evidence as showing the Waldensians to be a Christian body without 
formal Church organization, than to regard them as hypocrites, as Reinerius did, or 
as members of two antagonist Churches at the same time for any reason whatever. 

A word may be needful on their pre-eminent love of the Bible. Stephen of 
Borbone tells us of Waldo's care that it be translated into the peculiar Romance 
dialect. JSTo characteristic was more marked in the Waldensians than their love for 
the sacred volume, and this love compelled them to share the treasure with others 
by translations into the Flemish, German and French. Neander says that their 
two characteristics, above all others in Germany, were their general distribution of 
the Scriptures and the common priesthood of believers. 13 Herzog finds no sect 
which was so zealous for the circulation of the Scriptures as they. Others built 
Church systems and sought to make the Bible support them, thus rendering it a 
secondary means ; but, says Ochsenbein, the Waldensians laid down the Bible as 
the foundation and practically built upon its truths. 16 A Romish Inquisitor, in 
speaking of them, tells us : ' They can say a great part of the Old and New Testa- 
ments by heart. They despise the decretals and the sayings and expositions of holy 
men and cleave only to the text of Scripture. . . . They contend that the doc- 
trine of Christ and his Apostles is sufficient to salvation without any Church statutes 
and ordinances, and affirm that the traditions of the Church are no better than the 
traditions of the Pharisees, insisting, moreover, that greater stress is laid on the 
observation of human tradition than on the keeping of the law of God.' Seisselius, 
Archbishop of Turin, also states : ' They receive only what is written in the Old 
and New Testaments.' Last of all, Reinerius reports that ' whatever is preached 
that is not substantiated by the text of the Bible they esteem fables ; ' for which 
reason Pope Pius II. complains of their holding that ' baptism ought to be admin- 
istered without the addition of holy oil,' a fact which explains the further remark 
of Reinerius : ' They hold that none of the ordinances of the Church which have 
been introduced since Christ's ascension ought to be observed, as being of no 
value.' 



124 THE SUPPER. 

It is not likely that the Catholics were first impelled to forbid the Bible to the 
people by the malignant purpose of shutting them up in darkness, but by that ultra 
conservatism which dares not put it into the hands of the unlettered to-day without 
an accompanying creed. The public mind is esteemed by many to be unbalanced, 
and its bent must be shaped carefully or it will be perverted. The Waldensians 
cast all such rubbish to the Avind believing that the Bible never corrupted any man, 
while creeds have corrupted millions. Hence we find in one of their sermons on 
the Sower the following tribute to the Holy Oracles : ' The word of God is the 
salvation of the souls of the poor, the cordial of the languishing, the food of the 
hungry, the consolation of the afflicted, the excommunication of vice, the heir of 
virtue, the shame of devils, the light of hearts, the way of the traveler.' 

At the Conference of Bergamo, the Lord's Supper was a subject of wide dif- 
ference, but both sides appear to have interpreted the words : ' This is my body,' 
literally, as Luther did. The Lombards would not admit, however, with their 
Romance brethren, that any one could change the bread into the body of the Lord, 
but confined that power to holy men. They quoted many texts of Scripture to prove 
that the sacrifices of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord. Yet in order to 
provide for a faithful worshiper who was served by an unfaithful administrator, it 
was asserted that God himself would change the elements in such a case without 
the aid of man. The Lombards were further asked, 'Why they had given up their 
former practice of confession ? ' To which they replied : ' When I was a child I 
spake as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.' With con- 
fession, the Dispersed Waldensians put away the childish practice of the mass, and 
abandoned the dogma of the real presence in the Supper. The great theologian, 
David, of Augsburg, who died A. D. 1272, declares unequivocally of the Bavarian 
Waldensians : ' They do not believe that it is really the body and blood of Christ, 
but only consecrated bread, which is called the body of Christ, figuratively, as Christ 
is also called the ' Rock.' Herzog gives the following description of the Supper as 
certain of the Waldensians celebrated that ordinance : 

' Every year they met for the observance. The presiding officer called the assem- 
bly to order. A goblet of unmixed wine and a cake of unleavened bread were 
placed upon a cloth-covered table. The administrator exhorted the assembly to 
pray for the forgiveness of their sins, and repeat the Lord's Prayer seven times, to 
the honor of God and of the Holy Trinity, that he would himself prepare the sacra- 
ment. Then all fell on their knees, and prayed the Lord's Prayer seven times. 
After they had arisen, the presiding officer made a sign over the bread and wine, 
broke the bread, distributed it among them, all standing. In the same manner he 
served the cup.' 1T 

Their views of Religious Liberty are easily gathered. So free did they hold them- 
selves, that they contemned excommunication even from the true Church of Christ 
simply for the holding of any particular religious opinions, and treated expulsion from 
the Catholics with contempt. They silenced their ministers for immorality, but we 



THEY CLAIM RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. 125 

know next to nothing of other punishments in their brotherhood. As to civil inter- 
ference, Alanus says that ' They denied the right to persecute men for their relig- 
ious views and practices.' In keeping with this statement, their ' Cantica ' denounces 
the ' clergy of the Church of the malignants as evil hunters, who kill the hunted 
after the manner of hungry hounds. Pretending to be spiritual hunters they are 
become wicked foxes, that slay with evil teeth the poor chickens of Christ. Such 
are the homicidal monks. . . . Verily, as in the days of Christ, Annas and Caiaphas 
and the rest were Pharisees, so, now, Pope Innocent ; they would not go into the house 
of Pilate lest they be defiled, they delivered up Christ to the secular arm, just as 
they do yet.' 

Thus God raised up this noble people in the deep gloom of the ages to shine as 
a light in the dark places of the earth — a white lily in Alpine snows, to bloom 
amongst thorns, thistles and weeds. They give this account of themselves in the 
' Noble Lesson : ' ' The Scripture says, and we can see it, that if there is a good man 
who loves and fears Jesus Christ, who will not curse and swear and lie and com- 
mit adultery, and kill and rob, and avenge himself on his enemy ; they say at once 
he is a Waldensian and worthy of punishment.' One of their smaller Catechisms 
teaches six commandments of Jesus : ' Thou shalt not be angry with thy brother, 
nor look upon a woman to lust after her, nor put away thy wife except for the 
cause of adultery, nor swear, nor resist evil, and thou shalt love thine enemy.' For 
the maintainance of these things they were hated and abused for centuries. In the 
Alps they were a simple and primitive community of shepherds and farmers, whose 
country was naturally inaccessible and bari'en. They passed through thirty-six per- 
secutions which spared neither age nor sex. 

The crusade of Simon of Montfort so utterly destroyed them that Sismondi 
says : ' Simon stamped out not only a people but a literature.' Dominic, the father 
of the Inquisition, persecuted them with a high hand. From A. D. 1160-1500 their 
fortunes varied from the greatest prosperity to the depths of misery; alternating 
from an ardent zeal against the Romish Church to a cowering dread and a wretched 
compromise on the part of many with the doctrines of Rome, very similar to the Old 
Catholic movement of our times. The most dreadful of all their persecutions began 
in 1560, when many of their villages were deserted. The old, the feeble, women 
and children, fled to the forests, the rocks, the highest peaks of the mountains. 
Untrained peasants were obliged to form themselves into small brigades. Tottering 
old men and boys organized themselves into guards and sentinels, and accomplished 
immortal exploits by their skill and fortitude against veteran invaders. Possibly 
it had been better had they earlier invoked the spirit of men, who, in defense of 
their holiest rights to serve God, must measure swords with the incarnate fiends and 
craven bigots who dare to oppress them, on the ground that to thrash a coward is 
to challenge his respect. The horrible Inquisition was formed for the express 
purpose of planting an iron foot upon the throat of the most hallowed rights of man. 



126 



CRUELTIES. 



It never was suppressed till organized force chastised it ; and the same treatment 
might have cowed its devilishness much sooner, both to the honor of God and man. 
This tribunal of infernal origin clothed certain monks with limitless power to tort- 
ure Waldensians and 
lead them to execu- 
tion without legal 
forms or the rights 
of trial. And that 
power was plied upon 
these inoffensive peo- 
ple in those extremes 
which nothing can 
inflame but sancti- 1 
monious infernalism. 
Many of them were M 
frozen to death, others || 
were cast from high M 
precipices and dashed w 
to pieces. Some were 11 
driven into caverns, « 
and by filling the » 
mouths of their caves 
with fagots were Sjj 
suffocated. Others « 
were hanged in cold * 
blood, ripped open 
and disemboweled, 
pierced with prongs, 
drowned, racked limb 
from limb till death 
relieved them ; were 
stabbed, worried by 
dogs, burned, or cru- 
cified with their heads 
downward. Fox re- 
lates one case in which 
four hundred mothers 

who had taken refuge in the Cave of Castelluzzo, some 2,000 feet above the valley, 
entered by a projecting crag, were smothered with their infants in their arms. And 
all the time that this gentle blood was flowing, that sanctified beauty known as In- 
nocent III. drank it in like nectar of Paradise. Of the Waldensians and other 




CAVE OF CASTELLUZZO. 



MARTYRDOM OF SAGER. 127 

murdered sheep of Christ, he said : ' They are like Samson's foxes. They appear 
to be different, but their tails are tied together.' The blood-thirst of the Dominicans 
earned for them the stigma of ' Domini Canes ' or the ' Lord's Dogs.' The very 
sentences which they pronounced in mockery of trial and justice were a Satanic 
compound of formality and heartlessness, sanctimony and avarice, obsequiousness 
and arrogance. At the conclusion of a session of the Inquisition, held in Switzer- 
land, 1430, the following decree was published : 

' In the name of Cod, Amen. We, Brother Ulrich of Torrente. of the Domini- 
can order at Lausanne, and with full apostolic authority, Inquisitor of heretical iniq- 
uity, in the diocese of Lausanne ; and John de Columpnis, Licentiate and especially 
appointed to this work by the venerable father in Christ, Lord William of Challant, 
Bishop of Lausanne, have directed by the pure process of the Inquisition that you, 
Peter Sager, born at Montrich, now sixty years old, thirty years and more ago 
forswore the Waldensian heresy in the city of Bern, but since then have returned to 
that perverse faith, as a dog to his vomit, and held and done many things detestable 
and vile against the most holy and venerable Roman Church. You have stubbornly 
asserted that there is no purgatory, but only heaven and hell ; that masses, interces- 
sions and alms for the souls of the departed are of no avail ; and there are many 
other things proved against you in your trial, that show that you have fallen back 
into heresy. O grief ! Therefore after consideration, and investigation, and ma- 
ture consideration, and weighing of evidence ; and after consulting the statutes, both 
of divine and human law, and arming ourselves with the revered sign of the Holy 
Cross, we declare : In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Amen ; — 
That our decision may proceed from the presence of God and our eyes behold jus- 
tice, turning neither to the right nor to the left, but fixed only on God and on the Holy 
Scriptures, we make known as our final sentence from this seat of judgment, that 
yon, Peter Sager, are and have been a heretic, treacherously recreant to your 
oath of recantation. As a relapsed heretic, we commit you to the arm of the secu- 
lar power. However, we entreat the secular authorities to execute the sentence of 
death more mildly than the canonical statutes require, particularly as to the 
mutilation of the members of the body. We further decree, that all and every 
property that belongs to you, Peter, is confiscated, and after being divided into 
three parts, the first part shall go to the government, the second to the officers of the 
Inquisition, and the third to pay the expenses of the trial. 

Some of the town expenses attending the execution of Peter are found in the 
town records, as follows : ' Paid to Master Garnaucie for burning Peter Sager, 20 
shillings ; for cords and stake, 10 shillings ; for the pains of the executioner, 28 shil- 
lings ; special watchmen during the execution in the city, 17 shillings, 6 pfennigs; 
in the citadel, 9 sols ; for the beadles, 14 shillings.' The fuel must have cost a large 
amount, as twelve wagon loads were used. Side by side with this fiendish record 
stand these two charges : ' Twenty-eight measures of wine for the dance at the 

court-house, in honor of the Count of Zil. cauldron, in which Caspar Antoine, 

of Milan, was boiled.' 18 Have Waldensian blood and purity ever been avenged ? 



BAPTISTS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



CHAPTER I. 



IMMERSION IN ENGLAND. 



| ^ROM the introduction of Christianity into Britain, its baptism was immersion. 

X Simpson says, in the preface to his ' Ancient Baptismal Fonts,' of which he 
names 353 in England : ' As immersion was practiced in this Church until the 
Reformation, and perhaps oc- 
casionally later, as will after- 
wards appear, all fonts were up 
to that period sufficiently large 
for the purpose.' Grose also 
says of the baptisteries in the 
churches, that: 'The basins were 
very large. There was an ante- 
room where the ceremony of im- 
mersion was performed.' * So 
Lingard, in his ' History of the 
Early English Church ' tells us : 
' When an adult solicited bap- 
tism, he was called upon to 
profess his faith in the true 
God, by the repetition of the 
Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' 
Creed, and to declare his inten- 
tion of leading a life of piety. 
. . . He then descended into the 
font, the priest depressed his 
head below the surface, saying, 
I baptize thee,' etc. The candi- 
date 'was plunged into the 
water, the mysterious words were pronounced, and he emerged a member of the 
Church.' The same author says again, that when infant baptism had been intro- 
duced, 'The priest himself descended into the water, which reached to his knees. 




ANCIENT FONT AT ST. MARTIN S, CANTERBURY. 



TESTIMONIES GIVEN BT BEDE. 



129 



Each child was successively delivered undressed into his hands, and he plunged it 
thrice into the water.' 2 Gregory the Great is the authority for the statement that 
in 597 Austin and his missionaries baptized ten thousand in one day, to which 
Gocelin, Bede and others add that this baptism was in the river Swale. This river 
is in Kent, running between the Isle of Sheppy and the main land, and is navigable 
for ships of 200 tons burden. Green speaks of this scene, saying: ' The Kentish 
men crowded to baptism in the river Swale.' 3 And Gocelin calls it 'the river of 
holy baptism,' adding : ' All entered the dangerous depth of the river, two and two 
together, as if it had been a solid plain ; and in the true faith, confessing the exalted 
Trinity, they were baptized one by the other in turns, the apostolic leader blessing 
the water. ... So great a progeny for heaven born out of a deep whirlpool ! ' 4 
After the Venerable Bede has given an account of a large wooden baptistery 

hastily built at York, A. D. 627, for the baptism 
of Edwin, king of Northumberland, he describes 
the baptism of Paulinus in the Yorkshire river 
' Swale, which flows past the village of Cateract 
(Carrie) ; for as yet oratories or baptisteries, in the 
very beginning of the infant Church there, could 
not be built.' Alcuin, when speaking of the im- 
mersion of the king and his nobles ' in the sacred 
fountain,' says that York remained illustrious : 
'Because in that sacred place King Edwin was 
washed in the water.' Theodore, Archbishop of 
Canterbury, 669, enjoined triple immersion. Canon 
Ladaius said : ' If any bishop or presbyter does not perforin the one initiation with 
three immersions, but with giving one immersion only, into the death of the Lord, 
let him be deposed.' Brown's ' History of York Minster' marks the position of the 
wooden baptistery, 'inclosing a spring, still remaining, which, according to Dr. Giles, 
was discovered while making repairs of the present cathedral.' In gathering up 
these and other cases, Bede, who died A. D. 735, says : ' For he truly who is bap- 
tized is seen to descend into the fountain, he is seen to be dipped in the waters, he 
is seen to ascend from the waters.' The Council of Calichyth (Chelsea), held under 
Kenwolf, king of the Mercians, in 816, passed this canon: 'Let the presbyters know 
when they administer sacred baptism, not to pour holy water upon the heads of the 
infants, but always to immerse thera in the laver, after the example given by the 
Son of God himself to every believer, when he was three times immersed in the 
waters of Jordan.' In the following century the baptism of Ethelred took place on 
this wise, according to William of Malmesbury : 'When the little boy was immei-sed 
in the font of baptism, the bishops standing around, the sacrament was marred by a 
sad accident.' Such immersion is in keeping with the ' Sarum Use' (Liturgy), 
which existed from 1087, and of which Dr. Wall remarks, that it did all along 




THE VENERABLE BEDE. 



130 OTHER AUTHORITIES. 

enjoin dipping, without any mention of pouring or sprinkling. Cardinal Pulis, a 
lecturer at Oxford and Paris, in a treatise published about 1150, writes : ' Whilst 
the candidate for baptism in water is immersed the death of Christ is suggested ; 
whilst immersed and covered with water the burial of Christ is shown forth ; whilst 
he is raised from the waters the resurrection of Christ is proclaimed. The immer- 
sion is repeated three times.' 

In 1200, the Council of London enjoined immersion; that of Sarum in 1217, 
and that of Oxford in 1222, did the same : while the Synod of "Worcester, 1240, 
decreed that ' In every church where baptism is performed, there shall be a font of 
stone of sufficient size and depth for the baptism of children. . . . And let the 
candidate for baptism always be immersed.' Two Councils held at Perth, 1242, 
1296, by canon instructed the minister what to do before immersion, and in the 
days of Wallace and Bruce, a barbarous custom prevailed in the clanish feuds, 
amongst the border countries, which left the right hands of male children undipped 
in baptism, in order that they might with this unsanctified hand deal the more 
deadly blows upon their foes, as one of our great poets embodies the sentiment : 

' And at the sacred font the priest 

Through ages left the master hand unblest, 

To urge with keener aim the blood-incrusted spear.' 

Sir Walter Scott refers to this custom in his notes on the minstrelsy of the border, 
and says, that it existed in Ireland also. The Percy Society's poems of Win. de 
Shorham, vicar of Seven Oaks, gives an exposition of baptism about 1313, in which 
he says, that men may dip in warm water 'in whaut' (winter) and in the 'salt sea.' 
But he forbids dipping at baptism in wine, 'sither' (cyder), 'ne in pereye,' also in 
ale and 'other liquor thatchangeth water's kind,' a practice which prevailed to 
some extent. Water only must be used, but he allowed ice to be melted, for the 
purpose of procuring water. Pope Stephen allowed baptism in wine, if death 
impended, and water could not be had, and several cases are on record, in the Irish 
Church, where children were immersed in milk. They had water enough at hand 
anywhere for the purpose of aspersion, but immersion in some fluid was indispensa- 
bly necessary in the absence of water, even if rarer and more expensive than water. 
Before this time, however, as these many injunctions show, aspersion was made 
an exceptional method of administering the rite, in consequence, no doubt, of the 
permissive decree of the Council of Ravenna, 1311, before which it had no sanction. 
But the exceptions were few for a long period. Arthur, the eldest brother of 
Henry VIIL, and Margaret his sister, were immersed in the years 1486 and ] 502 
with elaborate ceremonies. Leland describes at length the new font made for the 
baptism of the prince at Winchester, lined with cloth to prevent the cold sides 
touching the child, and says, that ' the prince was put into the font.' The same 
writer describes the baptism of Margaret, grandmother to Mary Queen of Scots, 
at Westminster Abbey : ' As soon as she was put into the font all the torches were 



TTND ALE'S TESTIMONY. 131 

lighted.' He gives similar accounts of the dipping of Edward VI. and Queen 
Elizabeth, showing that the royal family was immersed as well as the common 
people, according to the ecclesiastical requirements of the times. 

It is clear enough that dipping continued as the normal form of the rite all 
through Edward's reign (1547-52), but Walker says, ' Sprinkling was sometimes 
used.' Indeed, the first Church permission found in England for any thing but 
immersion is in the Prayer-Book of 1549, which says, that ' If the child be weak, it 
shall suffice to pour water upon it.' With this exception the rubric demanded that 
the priest shall ' take the child in his hands,' and ' shall dip it in the water thrice. 
First dipping the right side : second the left side : the third time dipping the face.' 
In 1552 the word ' thrice ' was dropped from the book, together with the directions 
for the dipping to the right, left, etc., and the instruction was simply, ' shall dip it 
in water.' But this gradual change met with great resistance. Tyndale, in his 
Doctrinal Treatise, 1528, writes : 

'Ask the people what they understand by their baptism or washing? And 
thou shalt see, that they believe, how that the very plunging into the water saveth 
them. . . . Behold how narrowly the people look on the ceremony ! If aught be 
left out, or if the child be not altogether dipped in the water, or if, because the child 
is sick, the priest dare not plunge him into the water, but pour water on his head, 
how tremble they ! how quake they ! How say ye, " Sir John " [a common name 
for a priest], say they : "Is this child christened enough, hath it full Christendom?" 
They believe verily that the child is not christened.' Again he says : ' Tribulation 
is onr right baptism, and is signified by plunging into the water.' So the people 
were gradually robbed of the only symbol which gave the right import of their bap- 
tism, which was made what he quaintly calls : ' A turn-again lane unto them, which 
they cannot go through, nor make three lines agree together. . . . The sentences of 
the Scripture are nothing but very riddles unto them, at the which they guess as the 
blind man doth at the crow ' and expound by guess, a hundred doctors by a hundred 
ways.' In his Obedience of a Christian Man he says, that 'The plunging into the 
water signifieth that we die and are buried with Christ, and the pulling out again 
sign'fieth that we rise again with Christ in a new life.' And in his Prologue to 
John's I. Ep., he adds : ' Now, we be all baptized ; but, alas ! not one, from the high- 
est to the lowest, ever taught the profession or meaning thereof. And, therefore, 
we remain all blind generally, as well our great rabbins, for all their high learning 
which they seem to have, as the lay people. Yea, and so much the more blind are 
our great clerks (the learned), that where the lay people, for a great number of them 
are taught nothing at all, they be all wrong taught, and the doctrine of their baptism 
is all corrupt unto them with the leaven of false glosses, ere they come to read the 
Scripture ; so that the light which they bring with them, to understand the Scripture 
withal, is utter darkness, and as contrary unto the Scripture as the devil unto Christ.' 

It was with all this and much more in view that Watson, Bishop of London, 
1558, wrote : ' Though the old and ancient tradition of the Church hath been from 
the beginning to dip the child three times, etc., yet that is not of such necessity, 
but that he is but once dipped in the water, it is sufficient, yea, and in time of 
great peril and necessity, if the water be but poured on his head it will suffice.' 5 
So stern was the resistance, however, to this innovation, that Middleton, Bishop of 



132 SPRINKLING BECOMES THE RULE. 

St. David's, issued an ' injunction ' in 1582, forbidding trine immersion in baptism. 6 
The second Prayer-Book of Edward VI., 1552, enjoins only a single immersion, and 
that of Elizabeth, 1560, made no change in this rubric. This is still the law in the 
English Church. But, so far as appears, the word ' sprinkle ' first took rank in an 
English ritual, in the Catechism of 1604. In answer to the question, ' What is the 
outward visible sign or form of baptism ? ' it replies, ' Water, wherein the person 
baptized is dipped or sprinkled with it.' This was followed by the Westminster Di- 
rectory, 1644, which decided, that ' It is not only lawful, but also sufficient and most 
expedient, to be by pouring or sprinkling water on the face of the child.' Thus, in 
less than a century, what had been the general rule was reversed, and what had been 
the rare exception became the rule ; yet, in 1660, dipping had not become entirely 
extinct, as it was common in 1644. Lord Brooke, in his ' Treatise on Episcopacy,' 
1641, charges, that the ' Anabaptists ' refuse baptism to their children till they come 
to years of discretion, ' but in other things they agree with the Church of England.' 
His subject is baptism, and his ' other things ' must relate to this subject, for in 
doctrine and government they were wide apart. Blake, of Tamworth, says, in 1644 : 
' I have been an eye-witness of many infants dipped, aud I know it to have been the 
constant practice of many ministers in their places for many years together. Those 
that dip not infants do not yet use to sprinkle them, there is a middle way between 
these two. I have seen several dipped; I never saw or. heard of any sprinkled, or 
(as some of you use to speak) rantized. Our way is not by aspersion, but perfusion ; 
not sprinkling drop by drop, but pouring on at once all that the bowl contains.' 
Dr. Wall attributes the change to the Puritan clergy, whose deference to Calvin's 
authority led them to adopt sprinkling in accordance with his own form, adopted 1545. 
Walter Cradock, preacher at All Hallows, and one of the sweetest spirits of his 
day, preached before the House of Commons, at St. Margaret's, Westminster, July 
21, 1646, in which sermon he exhorts Parliament not to establish ' any outward ex- 
ternal ' for a test of church-fellowship, as : 

' Baptizing this way or that way, I mean by dipping or sprinkling, or by con- 
junction of opinion on some controverted point. . . . Therefore, when I have com- 
munion with a saint, I must not look so much whether he have taken the covenant, 
or have been baptized once or twice or ten times.' And in a marginal note he adds : 
' I speak not this as if my opinion were for rebaptizing or against the baptizing of 
infants of believers, the contrary appears by my practice! 1 7 

The value of his testimony is found in the fact that he gives no hint whatever 
that immersion was a new thing in England, but the implication runs all through 
his writings that it was very prevalent, and the public were as familiar with it as 
with the ' covenant ' or any other ' controverted point ' of that period. Besides, if 
immersion had been introduced amongst the ' Anabaptists' in 1641, it would have 
been simply preposterous for a learned clergyman to be exhorting Parliament, five 
short years after, not to make ' baptizing this way or that way, by dipping or sprink- 



CHAD OCR'S LIBERAL VIEWS. 133 

ling,' the foundation of church-fellowship. Nothing could be more far-fetched, or 
even impertinent, than such an appeal. Fortunately, he throws much light upon 
the general subject two years later, 1648, in his ' G-ospel-libertie, its Extensions and 
Limitations,' from which the following passages are taken : 

Page 23-4 : ' Saith Christ, Baptize all nations, that is, go and use water for 
their washing, for whatever men find in the word, I speak not of now. ... If 
Christ had tied men to go into Jordan, as in that country it was so hot, they 
might go with a great deal of comfort ; but if Christ had made baptism such an or- 
dinance as that in all climates and countries and regions they must go over head and 
ears in a river, we know in some climates it would have been present death. As 
with us in this climate, at some times of the year to be put over head and ears in 
the Thames, it would be death, at others not.' 

It is refreshing in the bitterness of the seventeenth century, side by side with 
Featley, to find a man who had the candor to apply his own logic on this subject 
and stand by it to its legitimate conclusions. Thus, on the Supper he says, p. 24 : 

' The Lord took bread and wine, and blessed, and broke and gave them ; and 
the drift of all the business is to show the breaking of his body, and the shedding of 
his blood. Now, he hath bound us that we should break bread and drink wine, that 
may represent the thing ; but he hath not bound lis to bread so properly called, or 
to wine properly so called ; for there are some countries that have neither bread nor 
wine, but only roots that they call bread, and they have water for their drink. 
Now, if Christ had said it must be true bread, and true and real wine, that must 
do the deed, these people could never have the Supper of the Lord.' 

Like Baxter, he was very nervous about the health of the English nation, and 
had little love for cold water to that end, but he never charges the Baptists with be- 
ing the authors of a new style of homicide. He does think, however, that they laid 
too much stress on dipping, and says on p. 26 : 

' Of dipping over head and ears, because the word bapto signifies over head and 
ears sometimes, and because the preposition em signifies to go into, from that they 
bind all the saints all the world over, to go into rivers, so that if a man be not 
dipped, but only sprinkled, because of the preposition era, that makes a nullity of 
the Church, that it is no church, and so, consequently, there shall be no church at all.' 

Still, with a charity far in advance of his age, he cannot bear to have the Bap- 
tists abused, especially in nick-naming them, and several times he rebukes this 
sharply, as on page 40, thus : 

' I see the devil gets much advantage by nick-names, by calling men Presbyte- 
rians, and Antinomians, and Anabaptists, and I know not what. Therefore, I be- 
seech you, beware how you use those names, though I say not it is unlawful, yet 
there be mistakes, let us call them as gently as we can, that are generally among us.' 

Here is no ' Gangraena ' nor vulgar slang, but a Christian scholar, and more, a 
Christian gentleman, who understands the times in which he lives, and knows how 
to talk about decent people with whom he differs on serious questions. On 
p. 100 he says : 



134 HIS ARGUMENT FROM EXPEDIENCY. 

' There is now among good people a great deal of strife about baptism ; as for 
divers things, so for the point of dipping, though in some places in England they dip 
altogether. How shall we end the controversy with those godly people, as many of 
them are. Look upon the Scriptures, and there you shall find that oapto (to bap- 
tize), it is an ordinance of God, and the use of water in way of washing for a spirit- 
ual end, to resemble some spiritual thing. It is an ordinance of God, but whether 
dipping or sprinkling, that we must bring the party to a river, or draw the river to 
him, or use water at home, whether he must be in head and foot, or be under the 
water, or the water under him, it is not proved that God hath laid down an absolute 
rule for it. Now, what shall we do ? conclude on the absolute rule that God hath 
laid down in Scripture, and judge of the rest according to expediency. . . . Let us 
judge whether sprinkling or dipping be more expedient, and then there would be 
no strife. For there is scarce a man in this place that if he were persuaded that 
dipping were not an absolute rule, but it were to be judged according to expediency, 
he would rather have in a modest way the use of water, than to have men and women, 
and weak people, it may be in the winter time, over head and ears into the river; 
he would rather make use of water in a more civil and safe and less dangerous way.' 

He neither charges upon the Baptists that their practice was unscriptural, new, 
nor a change from their former practice. On the contrary, he asks : ' How we shall 
baptize, whether by sprinkling or going into a river, because it is probable that 
some of them did ;' as to the English practice he says : 'In some places in England 
they dip altogether. How shall we end the controversy with those godly people, as 
many of them are.' He then frankly intimates his honest opinion that the contro- 
versy was as old as Christ's command to baptize, for he says, on p. 16, that when 
Christ sent his disciples to baptize he gave the command. 'And there was an end. 
They might ask a hundred questions. Shall we do it in a river or in a brook ? to 
young or to old ? in winter or in summer ? . . . But Christ lays down the sum of 
the doctrine, and the end of it, In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Ghost, and there is no more of it.' The only new thing that he hints at 
in this whole question of dipping, is his great concern for the life of the dipped. 
For centuries those opposed to them had been devising every conceivable method 
of getting rid of them, by fire and fagot, as in England and Holland, and by drown- 
ing outright, as in Switzerland and Austria. But now, one tender-hearted opponent 
springs up, who cannot bear the thought even of having their feet wet. Compassion 
was a new thing in their case, they were sickly and ' weak,' and to think of taking 
such ' feeble folk ' into the ' Thames ' and other rivers or brooks and wetting their 
' ears,' and that in winter too, was a moving thought for kind-hearted Walter 
Cradock. Yet as the Baptists would not stop this old, xmcivil, unsafe and ' dan- 
gerous way,' he says, page 108 : 

' I speak not that you may persecute godly people, or that it is altogether 
unlawful for the saints to meet in another place. ... Or thus, suppose in this 
country or in a colder that people did go and baptize in rivers, whereas this is not 
an absolute command. But only the using of water, lay down that, and by that 
means divers subjects die, and lose their lives, suppose this were real, herein for 
aught I know the magistrate may determine a course, and take another way, because 
herein is prejudice to his subjects.' 



CBADOCK AND BAXTER. 135 

This last is the passage referred to by Baxter in his ' Plain Scripture Proof,' 
pp. 134-137, in evidence that dipping is a violation of the Sixth Commandment, and 
should be stopped by the magistrate. His words are : 

' As Mr. Cradock shows in his book of Gospel Liberty, the magistrate ought to 
restrain it, to save the lives of his subjects. That this is flat murder, and no better, 
being ordinarily and generally used, is undeniable to any imderstanding man.' 

Certainly, Cradock's words will bear no such construction as Baxter put upon 
them, and that he meant no such thing is clear not only from the words themselves, 
but from the kind manner in which he uniformly treated those who had been 
'dipped over head and ears in the river.' He saw a slight tendency to suicide in 
such conduct, and he thought such people were too good to ' die and lose their 
lives,' and for aught he knew to the contrary 'the magistrate may determine a 
course, and take another way.' He could not bear him to lose such ' subjects,' he 
had too few of them now, but he hardly knew how to prevent it, for he says : ' I 
speak not, that you may persecute godly people,' who are dipped as they were 
altogether, ' in some places in England.' 

The reader may want to know somewhat more of this open-hearted, honest 
"Walter Cradock, who, according to Baxter, thought Baptists guilty of murder. 
Joshua Thomas states that he was a Welshman of a reputable family in Monmouth- 
shire, who, when a student at Oxfoi'd, visited his friends in Wales, and while there 
heard Mr. Wroth, the rector of Llanfaches, preach, and was converted. The next 
news we have of him is through Archbishop Laud, in 1634, to whom the Bishop of 
Landaff had reported that Walter was preaching as curate in St. Mary's in Cardiff ; 
but that ' being a bold, ignorant young fellow, he had suspended him, and taken 
away his license.' Then Neal tells us that in 1634—35 he was cited to London and 
condemned as a schismatic, so that he was compelled to leave the Establishment and 
preached all through Wales with great power. One of Laud's most serious charges 
against him was that he said in the pulpit, 'that God so loved the world, that for it 
he sent his Son to live like a slave, and die like a beast.' Brooks tells us, that this 
earnest Puritan formed an Independent Church at Llanfaches in 1639, and Orme, in 
his Life of Baxter, writes that about 1635, Baxter and Cradock became acquainted in 
Shrewsbury, when a strong affection was formed between them. But the 'Broad- 
mead Records' inform us that in 1643 he and his church were obliged to fly from 
Wales to Bristol before the king's army ; they took refuge in Bristol, which was 
held by the ' Parliament's army.' Then Cradock was glad to find a home amongst 
those who had been dipped head over ears in the river Erome, and as they had no 
pastor he administered the Supper to them : ' First at y e Dolphin, in y e greate 
Eoome, then afterwards sometime at a Baker's house, upon James' Back, who was a 
Member of y e Church.' When the king's army captured Bristol, these Welsh 
Independents and the Bristol Baptists fled together to London, and there ' Did 
commonly meet at Greate Allhallows for y e most parte. Only those professors 



136 RESISTING THE CHANGE. 

that were Baptized before they went up, they did sitt downe with Mr. Kiffen and 
his Church in London, being likewise Baptized.' 8 In 1646 we have his great ser- 
mon before Parliament, while preacher at All Hallows, and in 1648 his Gospel 
Liberty, which Baxter uses to such poor account ; and not least of all his statement 
that in some parts of England dipping was used altogether ; with his request, in 1646, 
that Parliament would not make this a test of Church fellowship. He died about 1660. 
Amongst the opponents of the new practice of sprinkling, some of the Baptists 
were found in stout resistance ; notably, as early as 1614, Leonard Busher, the author 
of ' Religions Peace,' wrote thus : 

' It is well worthy consideration, that as in the time of the Old Testament the 
Lord would not have his offerings by constraint, but of every man whose heart 
gave it freely : so now, in the time of the Gospel, he will not have the people con- 
strained, but as many as receive the word gladly, they are to be added to the Church 
by baptism. And therefore Christ commanded his disciples to teach all nations, 
and baptize them ; that is, to preach the word of salvation to every creature of 
all sorts of nations, that are worthy and willing to receive it. And such as shall 
willingly and gladly receive it, he hath commanded to be baptized in the water; 
that is, dipped for dead in the water.' 9 

S. Fisher also, in his 'Baby Baptism mere Babyism,' resists the innovation 
bravely. On July 29, 1649, he held a controversy at Ashford, with several clergy- 
men, and in 1653 published his book, in which he devotes 159 pages to show that 
sprinkling cannot be called baptism without perversion. He says : 

' Having raised the rotten basis of your Babyism, I come now to reckon with 
your Rantism, and to examine whether our manner of baptizing, which is by dip- 
ping, is the baptism which was instituted by Christ.' He closes page 464 as follows: 
' Thus have I done with both parts of that subject of rantizing, which partly at the 
motion of your Ashford disputants I was engaged in, and partly by that mere demi- 
reformation that is made on this point on a party of men in Lincolnshire and else- 
where (of whom I suppose there are several congregations), who having long since 
discovered the true way of baptism as to the subjects, namely : That professing 
believers only and not any infants are to be baptized, but remaining ignorant of the 
true way and form of administering the ordinance, are fallen into the frivolous way 
of sprinkling believers / which to do is as much no baptism at all as to dip infants 
is no baptism of Christ's ordaining. Which people, for whose sakes as well as 
others I write this, will be persuaded, I hope, in time, to be as to the outward form, 
not almost only, but altogether Christians, and rest no longer in that mere midway, 
mongrel Reformation.' 

Baxter said in 1650 : ' I may say, as Mr. Blake, that I never saw a child 
sprinkled, but all that I have seen baptized had water poured on them, and so were 
washed.' From that time onward, spi'inkling pushed pouring out of the way so 
fast that Selden, who died in 1654, remarks sarcastically in his ' Table Talk : ' 

' The baptizing of children with us does only prepare a child, against he comes to 
be a man, what Christianity means. In the Church of Rome it has this effect, it frees 
children from hell. ... In England, of late years, I ever thought the parson bap- 
tized his own lingers, rather than the child.' This is substantially what Featley had 
said in 1644 : ' The minister dippeth his hand into the water, and plucketh it out 
when he baptizeth the infant.' 10 



SPRINKLIXG NEVERTHELESS PREVAILS. 137 

So fast did the exception become the rule, that in the opening of the 
eighteenth century Dr. Wall tells us that he had heard of two persons then 
living who had been dipped in the font ; also of one clergyman then living who 
had so baptized infants, and that at the requests of the parents he had himself 
administered baptism in the same way. He further states that during the reigns 
of James and Charles I. all christened children were carried to the font, which 
act said : ' The minister is ready to dip the child if the parents will venture the 
health of it.' Dean Comber, in his work on the Common Prayer, 1688, said of 
the baptismal rite : ' Because the way of immersion was the most ancient, our 
Church doth first prescribe that, and only permits the other where it is certified 
the child is weak, although custom has now prevailed to the laying of the first 
wholly aside.' To this day, however, as Dean Stanley says : ' In the Church of 
England immersion is still observed in theory. . . . The rubric in the public bap- 
tism for infants enjoins that unless for special causes they are to be dipped, not 
sprinkled, but in practice it gave way from the beginning of the seventeenth 
century.' Occasionally it is used now, but according to the annals of that Church 
the last recorded instances of immersion before the Restoration were in dipping 
three infant sons of Sir Robert Shirley, in the reign of Charles I. This agrees 
with Gale's answer to "Wall, that dipping continued till Queen Elizabeth's time, 
' and then fell into total disuse, within a little more than a hundred years, and 
sprinkling, the most opposite, was introduced in its stead.' 

We fall into a mistake, however, if we suppose that the Baptists were the only 
people who resisted this change. Becon tells us that in the reign of Elizabeth 
there was contention on the subject in the Established Church. Wall treats of this 
at great length, and of the efforts made by many to restore dipping, not only, as 
Rogers expresses it to D'Anvers, ' in order to the peace of the Church,' but also to 
conciliate the Baptists, ' by your reunion with it, and the saving of your souls by 
rescuing you from under the guilt of schism, I could wish the practice of it re- 
trieved into use again.' Indeed, Daniel Rogers went so far as to say : ' I believe 
the ministers of the nation would be heartily glad if the people would desire or 
be but willing to have their infants dipped, after the ancient manner, both in this 
and in other churches ; and bring them to baptism in such a condition as that they 
might be totally dipped.' Walker, Towerson and other divines took the same 
ground. Sir Xorton Knatchbull, one of the most learned men of his day, was of 
the opinion, ' That it would be more for the honor of the Church, and for the peace 
and security of religion, if the old custom could conveniently be restored.' And Sir 
John Floyer, whom Wall pronounces ' a learned physician,' wrote a ' History of 
Cold Bathing, Ancient and Modern,' in which he showed its healthiness and bless- 
ings, without regard to climate, adding, that he could not ' advise his countrymen to 
any better method for preservation of health, than the cold regimen, to dip all their 

children in baptism,' and ' to wash them often afterwards, till three quarters of a 
11 



138 BAXTER'S PASSIONATE WORDS. 

year old.' By ' wash ' here he evidently means dip. He thought, also, that ' the 
approbation of physicians would bring in the old use of immersion in baptism.' X1 
The strange medley into which Baxter fell on the subject may throw light upon Sir 
John Floyer's position. The Kidderminster divine had become deeply concerned 
on this matter of immersion as affecting the national health, and had said, in 1650, 
that it was 'A plain breach of the Sixth Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill.'" 
So far then from being an ordinance of God, he denounced it ' as a most heinous sin,' 
and thought that ' the magistrate ought to restrain it, to save the lives of his subjects.' 
This seemed to afford amusement for the ablest physicians of that period, but 
in the nineteenth century, when the bath is accounted a constant necessity to health, 
what an edification it must be to the bathers at Newport, Long Branch, and Cape 
May to hear the pious author of ' The Saint's Everlasting Rest ' declaim thus, in de- 
picting the terrible calamities which follow immersion. He says : 

' Apoplexies, lethargies, palsies, and all other comatose diseases would, be pro- 
moted by it. So would cephalalgies, hemicranies, phthises, debility of the stomach, 
crudities, and almost all fevers, dysenteries, diarrhoeas, colics, iliac passions, convul- 
sions, spasms, tremors, and so on. All hepatic, splenetic, and pulmonic persons, and 
hypochondriacs, would soon have enough of it. In a word, it is good for nothing 
but to dispatch men out of the world that are burdensome, and to ranken church- 
yards. I conclude, if murder be a sin, then dipping ordinarily over head in England 
is a sin ; and if those who would make it men's religion to murder themselves, and 
urge it upon their consciences as their duty, are not to be suffered in a common- 
wealth, any more than highway murderers; then judge how these Anabaptists, that 
teach the necessity of such dipping, are to be suffered. ... If the minister must go 
into the water with the party, it will certainly tend to his death, though they may es- 
cape that go in but once. ... I am still more confirmed that a visible judgment of 
God doth still follow anabaptizing wherever it comes.' 12 

Baptists of our day ought not to be more severe on Baxter than to quote his 
own well-weighed words, for when he got over these occasional Anti-Baptist fits, 
he contended earnestly that he ought to take the Lord's Supper with his Baptist 
brethren, and then ' Richard was himself again.' "We have room for gratitude that he 
lived not in this age, or not a man of us could have obtained a Life Insurance 
Policy. Perhaps all the suffering that he deserved was meted out to him by Dr. 
John Owen, in these words : 

' I verily believe that if a man who had nothing else to do should gather into a 
heap all the expressions which, in his late books, confession and apologies, have a 
lovely aspect towards himself, as to ability, diligence, sincerity, on the one hand, 
with all those which are full of reproach and contempt toward others, on the other, 
the view of them could not but a little startle a man of so great modesty, and of 
such eminency in the mortification of pride, as Mr. Baxter is.' 

With a change in the ordinance itself, there naturally came in a change of 
the name by which it was known, namely, a ' washing.' From the most ancient 
times, washing had been spoken of as the result or consequence of dipping, as 
in the case of Naaman, who washed in the Jordan seven times, having dipped 



A CHANGE OF NAME. 139 

himself that number of times. To wash does not necessarily now mean to dip, yet, 
as the less is contained in the greater, so he that is dipped is washed. After his 
seventh dipping, Naaman was ' clean.' So Meyer, on Mark vii, 4 : ' Except they 
wash is not to be understood of washing the hands, but of immersion, which the 
word in classic Greek and in the New Testament everywhere means ; here, accord- 
ing to the context, to take a bath.' Plumptre, on the same passage, says : ' The 
Greek verb (that to wash) differs from that in the previous verse, and implies the 
washing or immersion (the word is that from which our word baptize comes to us) of 
the whole body, as the former does of a part.' Beza, on the same text, says that 
'• baptizein does not signify to wash, except by consequence. For it properly means 
to immerse.' Lightfoot describes unclean persons amongst the Jews as '■washed in 
some confluence of waters, in which so much water ought to be as may serve to 
wash the whole body at one dipping.' For centuries the word wash was not 
used as a synonym for baptism, but was commonly used to express the cleansing 
effect of baptism, as an immersion. Cyprian says of clinics, that they were ' not 
washed but perfused by the saving water ; ' evincing that in his judgment per- 
fusion was not to be accounted as washing in the same sense as immersion. 13 

Pouring and sprinkling having taken the place of immersion in England, bap- 
tism came to mean another thing from its former self; the words wash and washing 
naturally changed to adapt themselves to the new ordinance and to the theology by 
which it was interpreted. Hence, Baxter speaks of babes who had water poured 
upon them, and so were washed. In keeping with the change of the ordinance,. 
P. de Witte asks : ' Ought we not again to bring in dipping as the Muscovites and! 
others did?' and answers: 'It is not necessary, because washing is done with 
sprinkling as well as by dipping.' Until the Puritan divines returned from 
Geneva, they held the idea that tropical washing was the consequence of being 
overwhelmed, just as wetting is the consequence of immersion. Wickliff had so 
used the word in translating Mark x, 39: 'Ye shall be washed with the baptism in 
which I am baptized.' And it is specially interesting to note how reluctantly the 
English people received the new sense of the word wash, in association with sprink- 
ling in baptism. Not being able to see how that act could express the thought of 
cleansing without the full dipping, some resorted to the absurd idea that rubbing 
the water in would supply the place of immersion, in efficacious washing, and so 
we have several accounts of the adoption of this practice. P. Barbour's 'Discourse,' 
1642, records a striking example of this absurdity. He pronounces this sage opinion 
on the efficacy of ' rubbing, p. 14 : ' All do or may know that a thing dipped in 
water is not, therefore, washed or made clean, neither, is washing always intended 
in the dipping of a thing in water. Indeed, washing to make clean is by the way 
of dipping in many times, that by putting the thing into water and rubbing of it or 
the like it might be cleansed, which I conceive it was the way of their washing in 
those times and countries where Baptists first began.' 



CHAPTER II. 

IMMERSION I 1ST ENGLAND {Continued).— PERSECUTION. 

LET us now look at the practice of the people commonly known amongst the 
English as Baptists, par excellence. In the absence of definite information 
the inference would be warranted, that their administration of the rite corresponded 
-to that which they saw in the State Church ; for their chief controversy with their 
'brethren at that time did not relate to the ' mode,' but to the subject of baptism. 
'Their important word was not 'how,' but to ' whom ' should baptism be administered? 
'Their foes called them ' Anabaptists,' those who baptize again. Their offense, as a 
general thing, was not that they administered this ordinance in a different way from 
other Christians, but that they baptized on a confession of faith those who had been 
' baptized ' in infancy. There was no sharp controversy in the earliest literature of 
the 'Anabaptists' on the method of baptism, although we have some clear definitions 
of baptism and some cases of immersion. But, as a riile, in the maintenance of 
baptism on personal trust in Christ, they said little of immersion until they saw it 
vanishing away before human authority, even in England, where it had maintained 
itself so long. Step by step, the Reformation in England was feeling its way first 
to the naked and radical question : Who shall compose the Church of Christ ? The 
Roman yoke was broken, but in their efforts to rid the nation of superstition the 
Protestants were divided. The Puritans were still in the State Church, and many 
of them wished to stay there ; but the Baptists took the ground that the pale of the 
Gospel Church could never be measured by the boundaries of the nation. The 
Church must be made up only of Christians, and the settlement of that question 
must radically change the British Constitution. The consequence was that they 
threw themselves first into the recovery of a purely spiritual Church, and then into 
the restoration of apostolic immersion. That the struggle was hard and hot is 
seen in the fact that about two hundred works, pro and con, were issued in the 
seventeenth century on the questions of infant baptism and dipping. Many of 
these are preserved amongst the ' King's pamphlets ' in the British Museum, and 
others are lost. Public oral disputation on these subjects was rife also, in the 
hands of noted champions. One platform dispute was held in Southwark, 1642, 
between Dr. Featiey and Mr. Kiffin ; another in London, 1643, in which Knollys, 
Kiffin and Jessey took a part. T. Lamb and others held a third debate at Turling, 
in Essex, 1643 ; and a fourth was had in 1647, at Newport Pagnall, by J. Gibbs 
and R. Carpenter. S. Fisher and several clergymen held a fifth at Ashford, in 



THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY ON DIPPING. 141 

1649 ; and in the same year another took place at Bewdley, between Richard Baxter 
and John Tonibes. Similar contests occurred between Dr. Chamberlain and Mr. 
Bakewell, in London, 1650 ; EL Vaughan, J. Craig and J. Tombes, at Abergavenny, 
in 1653 ; and still another at Portsmouth, in 1698, between Dr. Russell and Samuel 
Chandler, ' with his majesty's license.' 

At the very time of these public disputations the Westminster Assembly met, 
by order of Parliament, and was in session from 1643 to 1649, and its discussions 
were sorely disturbed on this question of ' dipping.' Yet, according to Neal, there 
was not one Baptist in that body. Dr. Lightfoot, 1 one of its leading members, kept 
a journal of its proceedings, and his entry for August 7, 1644, tells us of ' a great 
heat ' in the debate of that day, when Lhey were framing the ' Directory ' for bap- 
tism, as to whether dipping should be reserved or excluded, or whether 'it was 
lawful and sufficient to besprinkle.' Coleman, called ' Rabbi Coleman ' because of 
his great Hebrew learning, contended with Lightfoot that tauveleh, the Hebrew 
word for dipping, demanded immersion ' over head ; ' and Marshall, a famous pulpit 
orator, stood firmly by him in the debate, both contending that dipping was essen- 
tial 'in the first institution.' Lightfoot says that when they came to the vote, 'So 
many were unwilling to have dipping excluded that the vote canie to an equality 
within one, for the one side was twenty-four, the other twenty-five ; the twenty-four 
for the reserving of dipping, and the twenty-five against it.' ' The business was recom- 
mitted,' and the next day, after another warm dispute, it was voted that ' pouring or 
sprinkling water on the face ' was sufficient and most expedient. How did this 
Presbyterian body, without a Baptist in it, come to such ' a great heat ' on dipping, 
if it were a novelty and an innovation amongst them in England ? 

It is a significant fact also that S. Fisher, in his ' Anti-Rantisrn,' complains that 
at Ashford and elsewhere the clergy would discuss only the ' subjects,' carefully 
avoiding all discussion of the method of baptism, a thing which they would have 
been slow to do if they had known that the 'so-called' new baptism or immersion 
was, as such, an innovation in England. This they were careful never to charge. 
Dr. Funk, Catholic professor at Tubingen, dates the rise of sprinkling and its first 
prevalence thus : ' Throughout the fifteenth century, in decrees of synods, immer- 
sion is referred to as the general and orderly form of baptism.' Of sprinkling he 
says : ' The first sure evidence of its practice is met with at the Synod of Florence, 
when the Archbishop of Ephesus made it a subject of complaint against the Western 
Church ' (1439). When it was introduced immersion long resisted it as a new form, 
and this scholar says that when water was poured upon the head the rest of the 
body was still immersed. On the general subject, he quotes from the Synod of 
Passau, 1470 ; of Wurzburg, 1482 ; of Besancon, 1571 ; of Aix, 1585 ; and Caen, 1614. 

These discussions had produced such a growing distrust in the public mind on 
the subject of infant baptism, as early as 1661, that for the first time a form of 
service was introduced into the Prayer-Book for the public baptism of those of 



142 IMMERSION NO NEW THING. 

riper years. The preface honestly states the reason : ' By the growth of Anabaptism 
through the licentiousness of the late times, crept in amongst us, is now become 
necessary, and may be always useful, for the baptizing of natives in our plantations 
and others, converted to the faith.' The Baptists were assailed for attempting to 
restore the ancient state of things as if they had committed an unheard-of crime, 
and but for the history and literature of many centuries the clamor might lead to 
the supposition that immersion had never been heard of until they sought to restore 
the normal English baptism. They were called a 'New- washed company,' were 
charged with bringing in a ' new dipping,' a ' novelty ' and an ' invention,' with 
being ' led away of the devil,' with ' murdering the souls of babes,' and a few other 
things of the same gracious sort. Bigotry and hate could not have raised a greater 
howl if immersion had then been practiced on English soil for the first time. And 
yet even Dr. Featley is compelled to say in his ' Clavis Mystica,' 1636 : ' Our font is 
always open, or ready to be opened, and the minister attends to receive the children 
of the faithful, and to dip them in the sacred laver.' Even in our day an attempt 
has been made to leave the onus of invention upon the English Baptists, in the 
matter of immersion, because simple-hearted Barbour happened to say, in 1642, that 
the Lord had raised him up to ' divulge the true doctrine of dipping.' Yet, his 
entire treatise discusses the question, ' What is the true ordinance of the dipping of 
Christ, and wherein does it differ from children's dipping ? ' In the very sentence 
which speaks of divulging the doctrine he says that it ' was received by the apostles 
and primitive churches, and for a long time unavoidably kept and practiced by the 
ministry of the Gospel in the planting of the first churches.' The word ' divulge ' 
was not confined at that time to the sense of disclosing or discovering a thing, as 
now, but it meant primarily to ' publish.' Henry Denne was immersed in 1643, 
and preached the Gospel from that time onward ; and yet, in sending him forth on 
a special mission, the Baptist Church at Fenstanton, October 28, 1653, says that, 
' On that day' he ' was chosen and ordained, by imposition of hands, a messenger to 
divulge the Gospel of Jesus Christ ; ' 2 surely not to make it public, as a new thing. 
Barbour speaks of the ' dipping of infants ' more than a score of times, as a thing 
with which all were familiar, but he says : ' That dipping whereof we speak is 
burying or plunging a believer in water, he desiring of this ordinance.' 

There is less clear and decisive evidence of the practice of immersion amongst 
the English Baptists from 1600 to 1641 than might be desired, but the passage 
cited from Leonard Busher, and other proofs, render it certain that they did not 
first practice it in 1641. It is quite clear that some of them practiced affusion up to 
that time, while some immersed, but after that date affusion seems to have ceased 
amongst them and only immersion obtained. The case of John Smyth, who 
baptized himself in 1608, may be conceded to have been an affusion, and yet this 
is by no means certain, neither has his immersion been proved. After all that Dr. 
Hoop Scheffer and others have said on the subject, passages from Smyth's three 



LEONARD BUSHER' S CASE. 143 

Confessions of Faith are strangely in conflict with the thought that he practiced 
aspersion upon himself for baptism. Article XIV in his Latin Confession describes 
baptism as ' the external symbol of remission of sins, of death and resurrection.' 
Article XXX in his English Confession says : ' The whole dealing in the outward 
visible baptism of water setteth before the eyes, witnesseth and signifieth, the 
Lord Jesus doth inwardly baptize the repentant, faithful man in the laver of regen- 
eration and renewing by the Holy Ghost, washing the soul from all pollution and 
sin, by the virtue and merit of his bloodshed.' The confession of himself and friends, 
published after his death, Article XXXVIII, says : ' That all men, in truth died, are 
also with Christ buried by baptism into death (Rom. vi, 4 ; Col. ii, 12), holding their 
Sabbath in the grave with Christ.' And Article XL, ' That those who have been 
planted with Christ together in the likeness of his death and burial shall be also in 
the likeness of his resurrection.' These utterances savor more of immersion than 
affusion, and yet they were probably written after his Se-Baptism, so that its form 
is left in doubt, with the probability that it was a dipping. 

A feeble but strained attempt has been made to show that none of the English 
Baptists practiced immersion prior to 1641, from the document mentioned by Crosby 
in 173S, of which he remarks, that it was ' Said to be written by Mr. William Kiffin. 1 
Although this manuscript is signed by fifty-three persons, it is evident that its au- 
thorship was only guessed at from the beginning, it may or may not have been 
written by Kiffin. The church referred to was that of which Messrs. Jacob and 
Lathrop had been pastors, but the fact that a part of this congregation did not know 
that the immersion of believers had been practiced in England cannot be accepted 
as decisive proof that all the Baptists were strangers to that practice, still less that 
it had never been known in England before 1641. It can scarcely be supposed that 
Leonard Busher should have written in 1614 that Christ ' commanded ' those who 
'willingly and gladly ' received ' the word of salvation to be baptized in the water, 
that is, dipped for dead in the water,' and that he neglected to obey that command 
himself. He calls himself ' a citizen of London,' and his style as an English writer, 
though somewhat unpolished, was equal to the average of his times ; he appears to 
have been acquainted with the Greek Text of the New Testament ; he addressed the 
king (James) and ' the High Court of Parliament ' as a man who had the right to 
address them as a ' citizen,' and with a full knowledge of English affairs. He speaks 
of himself and his brethren as : ' We that have most truth are most persecuted, and 
therefore most poor,' and his work bears internal evidence that at some time he had 
been exiled from his native land for his religion. The ' Address to the Presbyterian 
Reader,' which forms the Introduction of his Treatise, is signed H. B., supposed to 
be Henry Burton, and it says of Busher that he was ' an honest and godly man.' 
"What the Treatise itself says of Robinson and the Brownists, with these circumstances, 
all point to the supposition that he was a member of the Baptist Church, formed in 
London by Helwys in 1612-14. But, in any case, the fair inference from his own 



144 THE KIFFIN MS. 

words is, that he was an immersed believer nearly thirty years before the MS. to ' 
which Crosby refers was written. The following is the text of that paper : 

1640. 3d mo. The church became two by mutual consent, first half being 
wth. Mr. P. Barebone and ye. other half wth. Mr. H. Jessey. Mr. Richd. Blunt wth. 
him being convinced of Baptism yt. also it ought to be by diping ye Body into ye. 
Water, resembling Burial and riseing again, Col. ii : 12 ; Bom. vi ; 4 : had Sober 
Conference about it in ye. Church, and then wth. some of the forenamed, who also 
were so convinced. And after Prayer and Conference about their so enjoying it, 
none having so practiced in England to professed believers, and hearing that some 
in the Nether Lands had so practiced, they agreed and sent over Mi 1 . Richd. Blunt 
(who understood Dutch) wth. Letters of Commendation, who was kindly accepted 
there, and Returned wth. Letters from them ; Jo. Batte a Teacher there ; and from 
that Church to such as sent him. 1641. They proceed on therein, viz. : Those 
persons yt ware perswaded Baptism should be by diping ye. Body, had mett in two 
Companies and did intend so to meet after this : all these Agreed to proceed alike 
together : And then Manifesting (not by any formal Words) a Covenant (wch. Word 
was Scrupled by some of them) but by mutual desires and agreement each testified : 
These two Companies did set apart one to Baptize the rest, so it was solemnly per- 
formed by them. Mr. Blunt Baptized Mr. Blacklock, yt. was a Teacher amongst 
them, and Mr. Blunt being Baptized, he and Mr. Blacklock Baptized ye. rest of 
their friends yt. ware so minded, and many being added to them they increased 
much. 

Dr. Featley, author of ' The Dippers Dipt,' born 1582, died 1645, bears direct 
testimony to the practice of believer's immersion amongst the Baptists at a much 
earlier period than 1641. In that year he held a dispute with four Baptists at South- 
wark ; and, as he says, in his dedication to the reader, Jan. 10, 1644, ' I could hardly 
dip my pen in any thing but gall,' we may not suspect him as stating facts within 
his knowledge to their special advantage. Yet on this subject he says of them : 
' They flock in great multitudes to their Jbrdans, and both sexes enter into the river, 
and are dipt after their manner. And as they defile our rivers with their impure 
washings, and our pulpits with their false prophecies and fanatical enthusiasms, so 
the presses sweat and groan under the load of their blasphemies. . . . This venom- 
ous serpent (vere Solifuga) is the Anabaptist, who, in these latter times, first showed 
his shining head, and speckled skin, and thrust out his sting near the place of my resi- 
dence, for more than twenty years." 1 He conveys the idea that they had defiled the 
' rivers with their impure washings,' in being ' dipt after their manner J quite as 
long as they had defiled ' our pulpits' and 'presses,' and that near his own residence 
' for more than twenty years.' To his knowledge, then, they had ' dipt ' ' both 
sexes,' in the English ' rivers ' from before A. D. 1624 ; his whole work treats of 
them as 'Dippers,' who in baptism always ' dipt,' and had he known that they had 
ever done any thing else, he would have been very happy to have charged them 
with now throwing aside the right method and with taking up the wrong. 

When P. Barbour speaks of the way of ' new baptizing,' he also speaks of bap- 
tism having been ' in captivity in Babylon ; ' which indicates, not that the Baptists 
had now originated dipping in England, but that they had restored the historical 



BAXTER'S CONCESSIONS. 14S 

baptism which England had ever known till that time. This he calls ' God return- 
ing to build his tabernacle.' Smyth himself, in reply to Clifton, calls the baptism 
of the Baptists ' new] but in what sense ? He says : ' They set up a new or apostolic 
baptism which Antichrist had overthrown. . . . When all Christ's visible ordinances 
are lost, either men must recover them again, or must let them alone.' The word 
' new ' was customarily applied to reforms in those days. Gov. Bradford calls 
Smyth's church at Amsterdam a ' new communion,' a term which Bishop Hall ap- 
plied to the Brownist churches, but neither of them meant that a church was a new 
device in the earth. The Bishop complains that the Separatists classed the Church 
of England with the old Church of Rome, saying : ' The want of noting one poor 
distinction breeds all this confusion of doctrine and separation of men. For there 
is one case of a New Church to be called from heathenism to Christianity ; another, 
of a former church to be reformed from errors to more sincere Christianity. . . . 
This is our case. We did not make a New Church, but mended an old. Your 
Clifton is driven to this old, by necessity of argument ; otherwise he sees there is no 
avoiding of Anabaptism. . . . Neither is new baptism lawful (though some of you 
belike of old were in hand with a rebaptization ; which, not then speeding, succeed- 
eth now to your shame), nor a new, voluntary, and particular confession of faith be- 
sides that in baptism, though very commendable, will ever be proved simply neces- 
sary to the being of a church.' 3 

Even Baxter has been called to the stand for the purpose of saying that the 
Baptists ' do introduce a new sort of Christianity ' . . . and ' a new sort of bap- 
tism, which the Church of Christ never knew to this day. ... As if they were 
raised in the end of the world to reform the baptism and Christianity of all ages, 
and were not only wiser than the universal Church from Christ till now, but also at 
last must make the Church another thing.' When Baxter explains Baxter, what- 
ever else he may mean, he does not mean that dipping was a new device either in 
England or in Christianity. In defining baptism he writes : ' The action of the 
minister on God's part is to wash the body of the baptized with the water, which, 
in hot countries, was by dipping them over head, and taking them up.' 4 Again : ' It 
is commonly confessed by us to the Anabaptists, as our commentators declare, that 
in the Apostles' time the baptized were dipped over head in the water. . . . We 
have thought it lawful to disuse the manner of dipping, and to use less water.' » 
Nor did he think that ' rebaptism,' as he calls it, was a ' new sort of Christianity 
and baptism,' for he declared that ' If any person discovered a minister who bap- 
tized him to be no minister' he might be baptized again ; ' nor would I account it 
morally twice baptizing, but a physical repeating of that act which morally is but 
one. ' s Neither did he think that Baptist dipping had made ' the Church another 
thing ' in such sense as to cut them off from Christian fellowship. He says : ' For 
the Anabaptists themselves, though I have written and said so much against them, 
as I found that most of them were persons of zeal in religion, so many of them were 



146 IN WHAT SENSE A 'NEW' BAPTISM. 

sober, godly people, who differed from others but in the point of infant baptism, 
or, at most, in the points of predestination, free-will and perseverance.' 7 He asks : 
'May Anabaptists, that have no other error, be permitted in church communion? 
Ans. Yes, and tolerated in their practice also : For 1. They agree with us in all 
points absolutely necessary to communion. 2. The ancient Christians had lib- 
erty either to baptize, or let them stay till age, as they think best : and, there- 
fore, Tertullian and Nazianzen speak against haste : and Augustine and many 
Christian parents were baptized at age.' 8 After yielding the whole ground to 
the Baptists in this way, it is hard to understand what he means by ' a new 
sort of baptism, which the Church of Christ never knew to this day,' unless it be 
the new line or succession of baptism which Smyth had introduced by baptizing 
himself. 

This is clear enough from P. Barbour's discourse. After attempting to prove 
that the baptism of the Roman Catholic Church is valid, he speaks of Smyth's bap- 
tism, protesting that if pure baptism 

'Is nowhere else to be found remaining in the world, there is no ground for 
this practice of raising baptism : by persons baptizing themselves.' Instead, there 
should be ' a seeking out of the Church where she were to be found, and there re- 
ceiving the holy obedience of Christ's baptism as in a right line, and so be added to 
the Church, and from thence conveying the truth into these parts again where it 
had ceased." 1 He then tries to show at great length that if baptism be ' lost and 
fallen out of the world, and an idol and likeness were in the room of it,' no persons 
have the right to attempt a ' new beginning,' or ' go about the raising, erecting, or 
setting up of it again, without a special commission from God.' He then complains 
that those who reject Roman baptism insist on the practice of dipping ; ' and that 
persons are to be dipped, all and every part to be under the water, for if all the 
whole person is not under the water, then they hold that they are not baptized with 
the baptism of Christ. . . . ' Truly they want a Dipper that hath authority from 
heaven as had John. ... I hope when they have further considered this matter 
they may abate of the fierceness of their opinions, so as to think that baptism under 
or in the defection may be God's ordinance, so as there shall be no need of this new 
dipping,' which he admits to have been but a revival of the old practice. 

Denne put the question of dipping in England in its true light in his public 
disputation at St. Clement Dane's church with Mr. Gunning in 1656. At p. 40 
he says : 

' Dipping of infants was not only commanded by the Church of England, but 
also generally practiced in the Church of England till the year 1600 ; yea, in some 
places it was practiced until the year 1641, until the fashion altered. ... I can show 
Mr. Baxter an old man in London who has labored in the Lord's Pool many years ; 
converted by his ministry more men and women than Mr. Baxter hath in his parish ; 
yea, when he hath labored a great part of the day in preaching and reasoning, his 
reflection hath been (not a Sack-possit or a caudle), but to go into the water and 
baptize converts. ... I wonder that Mr. Baxter should forget that he hath read in 
authors, which he deems authentic, who write that Ethelbert King of Kent, with 
10,000 men and women, were baptized in Canterbury, upon the 25th of December, 
in the year 597.' 



ALLEGED INDECENT PRACTICES. 147 

And the same tone is maintained by ' R. W.' in his Declaration against Ana- 
baptists in answer to Cornwall ; he says, London, 1644, p. 1 : 

' You argue thus, " That which God hath joined together, no man ought to 
separate, (But faith and baptism, or more properly dipping,) God hath joined 
together ; therefore, faith and baptism (or dipping as the original renders it) no man 
ought to separate." ' 

The fact is, that it was not the dipping of the Baptists which shocked their 
opponents so much as Smyth's act with some of its consequences. The Anti- 
Baptists possessed a certain church and ministerial succession, and under this idea 
they regarded his course as profanity. They considered Baptists as mere inter- 
lopers, having no right to administer the ordinances in any way, as they had 
renounced that succession. The Baptists were regarded as ' upstarts,' and their 
'new dipping,' looked at in any light, was but an innovation. 'Backus caught 
this distinction with great clearness, and says : ' Being hardly accused with the 
want of valid administrators, moved seven Baptist churches, who met in London 
in 1643 to declare it as their faith that by Christ's communion every disciple who 
had a gift to preach the Gospel had a right to administer baptism, even before 
he was ordained in any Church ; ' much less that he should be required first to prove 
his regular descent by succession from the Apostles. (Backus, ii, p. 4.) Whoever 
the Baptists immersed had, in the opinion of their foes, been baptized as babes, and 
so their after-dipping was new and unauthorized, especially when had in unconse- 
crated places, as rivers and streams ; such as Old Ford River, near Bromley, in 
Middlesex, which Wilson, in his ' Dissenting Churches,' says ' was much frequented ' 
for this purpose. Nay, their foes even professed themselves shocked with the 
bodily exertion of such immersions. John Goodwin, in semi-comic style, says of 
' the Baptist who dippeth ' that he ' had need be a man of stout limbs, and of a 
very able and active body ; otherwise the person to be baptized, especially if in any 
degree corpulent or unwieldly, runs a great hazard of meeting with Christ's later 
baptism instead of his former.' 

Baxter affected to be shocked, for it was reported to him that they baptized 
in the rivers, naked. Featley and others report the same, but none of them pre- 
tended to have been eye-witnesses of these reported indecencies. On the contrary, 
Baxter adds : " I must confess I did not see the persons baptized naked, nor do I 
take it to be lawful fo defame any upon doubtful reports,' words which imply 
honest doubt. But Richardson resented this imputation, saying : ' We abhor it, 
and deny that any of us ever did so;' then he challenged Featley 'to prove it 
against us if he can.' This the Doctor was careful never to attempt. Haggar de- 
clares that he had baptized and been at the baptizing of ' many hundreds if not 
thousands, and never saw any baptized naked in his life, neither is it allowed nor 
approved of amongst any that I know of.' Baxter lived near Tombes, his great 
Baptist disputant, and yet followed ' common fame ' in this matter, instead of in- 



148 EARLY BAPTISTS IN ENGLAND. 

quiring of him, thus allowing anonymous slanderers to fill his ears. He said that 
he was willing to commune with the Baptists, but he seems never to have taken 
one step to learn the truth of this charge against his dear brethren. Even had he 
found the charge true, he should not have been too much shocked that they copied 
the fanaticisms of the Fathers, whom he so much revered : Chrysostom, Augustine 
and Cyril, who stickled zealously for nude baptism. Besides, in England the children 
were baptized without clothing at that time. Dr. Wall says that ' the wealthy people 
began to object to the stripping of their children naked, and the affrighted screams 
with which they received immersion.' Bacon confirms this, saying that ' honesty 
and shamefacedness forbiddeth to uncover the body, and also the (weak) state of 
infants, for the most part, cannot away 'with dipping.' Wall coolly adds that the 
Baptists need not to have made so great an outcry against Baxter's charge of inde- 
cency, for that the primitive Christians baptized in entire undress. And for the same 
reason Baxter need not to have cried out against the Baptists, even if he could have 
proved that they followed this bad example of the primitive Christians ; which, 
however, they seem to have avoided with all carefulness. Their confession of 
1643 evinced their modesty, by requiring 'convenient garments, both upon the 
administrator and subject, with all propriety, when they immersed.' 

This chapter can scarcely be closed better than by showing that the so-called 
'Anabaptists' of the realm had long practiced according to these views. There 
are traditions of Baptist Churches in England from the fourteenth century, 
but they are not well sustained by historical records. Collier speaks of many 
infants who were left unbaptized in the middle of the twelfth century. Robinson 
says that there was a Baptist church at Chesterton in 1459 ; and others mention 
'heretics' all over England, who refused baptism for infants in various reigns 
down to Henry VIII. The law of the land demanded the baptism of all, but as 
we have no reliable records of Baptist churches it is fair to infer that these ob- 
jectors were either English Lollards or foreignei's driven from the Continent. We 
do not find the name ' Anabaptist ' applied to English ' heretics ' until the reign of 
Henry, 1509, nearly a century after all trace of the Lollards is lost, their chief 
relic then being the Lollard's Tower, that of St. Gregory's Church, contiguous to 
St. Paul's Cathedral, which had been used as their prison. Fox records that in 
1535, according to the registers of London, nineteen ' Anabaptists ' were put to 
death in various parts of the realm, and that fourteen Hollanders were burnt in 
pairs in England. A 'History of the "Anabaptists " of High and Low Germany' 
was written in 1642, and is now amongst the ' King's Pamphlets.' Its bitter 
author writes (p. 55): 'All these are scions of that flock of Anabaptism that was 
transplanted out of Holland in the year 1535, when two ships laden with Ana- 
baptists fled into England ; . . . here it seemeth they have remained ever since ' 
(p. 48). Barclay also reports that in 1536 'Anabaptist' societies in England sent a 
delegation to a great gathering of their brethren in Westphalia. 9 It appears, 



ENGLISH MARTYRDOMS. 149 

therefore, that the origin of the English Baptists, as a distinct sect, is to be found 
amongst the Baptist refugees who were driven from the Netherlands. 

The Lollards had prepared the way for the rapid spread of the principles of 
these Dutch Christians, and since 1535 Baptist witnesses for the truth have stood 
firmly on British soil, either as individuals or as organized churches. By 1536 their 
doctrines had so spread amongst English folk that a Church Convocation de- 
nounced them by name, requiring the people to repudiate their principles and 
practices, ' as detestable heresies and utterly to be condemned.' Dr. Wall, in 
recording this proceeding, says-: 'Some people in England began to speak very 
irreverently and mockingly about some of the ceremonies of baptism then in use ; ' 
and he gives a catalogue of ' profane sayings that began to be handed about among 
some people,' as follows : ' That it is as lawful to christen a child in a tub of water 
at home, or in a ditch by the way, as in a stone font in a church.' Custom then 
immersed the child in the consecrated ' font,' not in unhallowed streams. Another 
' profane saying ' was : ' That the hallowed oil is no better than the Bishop of 
Koine's grease or butter.' Again : ' That the holy-water is more savory to make 
sauce with than the other (water), because it is mixed with salt ; which is also a 
very good medicine for a horse with a galled back ; yea, if there be put an onion 
thereto, it is a good sauce for a giblet of mutton.' This kind-hearted divine 
resented such unreverential reflections of the English Anti-pedobaptists, and so 
did the king and Convocation. Still the good doctor tbought that this threw no 
dishonor on infant baptism, but Henry and the Convocation saw disdain for the 
thing itself, in contempt for the ceremonies which attended it, and proceeded to 
read the nation a lecture, in six particulars. They declared baptism necessary to 
eternal life, that it belongs to infants, and makes them sons of God ; that, being 
born in original sin, they cannot be saved but by the grace of baptism, etc. Then 
they discover the real animus of their action with their alarm for the mischief on 
the subject which the Baptists had already wrought in the public mind. They say 
to all Englishmen ' that they ought to refute and take all the Anabaptists' and Pe- 
lagians' opinions in this behalf for detestable heresies.' Then "Wall cites Fuller out 
of Stow to prove that in 1538 six Dutch Anabaptists were punished in London, 
' four bearing fagots at Paul's Cross, and two being burnt in Smithfield.' Again 
quoting from Fuller, he writes : ' This year the name of this sect first appears in 
our English chronicles,' and from Fox, that ten Dutch ' Anabaptists ' were put to 
death in England in 1535, a year before these utterances of Convocation. The 
sixth article condemns this heresy in ' other men] who were not of these prescribed 
bodies, alluding to the English Baptist infection ; for the lower house complained 
to the upper, in its ' catalogue of some errors that began to be handed about among 
some people,' and which the united body sharply rebuked. The king published a 
proclamation, 1538, condemning all Baptist books ; an Act of Grace was passed 
the same year from the benefits of which the Baptists were excepted, and the 



ISO CONTROVERSIAL LITERATURE. 

Bishops of the Southern Province issued a commission to seek out and punish 
them. Brand reports that in 1539 thirty-one 'Anabaptists' fled from England and 
were slaughtered at Delft, Holland ; the men were beheaded and the women 
drowned. 

Fronde mentions a number who were put to death for ' being faithful to their 
conscience,' and Stow tells us of four being burnt in Smithfield. These facts indi- 
cate their growing strength at that time. In a royal proclamation, issued in 1540, 
some of their so-called errors are thus enumerated, namely : ' That infants ought 
not to be baptized, and that it is not lawful for a Christian man to bear office or 
rule in the commonwealth.' But persecution only promoted their increase. Strype 
tells us that about 1518 'Anabaptist' congregations had been gathered at Booking 
and Feversham, amongst whom are many English names. Sixty of their members 
were arrested; and Hart, Middleton, Coal and Brodbridge, four of their ministers, 
were made prisoners. Middleton was martyred in the reign of Edward, and when 
Archbishop Cranmer threatened him with death he replied : ' Reverend sir, pass 
what sentence you think fit upon us. But that you may not say that you were not 
forewarned, I testify that your turn may be next ; ' and twenty years afterwards his 
expectation was realized. Hooper wrote to his friend, Bullinger, 1549, that he was 
lecturing twice a day to great crowds, but that the ' Anabaptists ' flocked to the 
place and gave him much trouble, another indication that these hearers of his were 
English born. And last of all, Latimer, in preaching before Edward VI., March 
29, 1549, told the king that he had heard of many of them in the realm, of five 
hundred in one town, and that in many places they had been burnt, dying cheer- 
fully for their faith, coolly adding : ' Well, let them go.' 

The literature of the times is in keeping with these statements. In 1548 
John Vernon translated and published Bullinger's ' Holesome Antidote Against 
the Pestilent Sect of the Anabaptists.' William Turner, a physician, 1551, issued 
a treatise called a ' Triacle ' {remedy) ' against the poyson lately stirred up agayn by 
the furious Secte of the Anabaptists.' Philpots, in his sixth examination before 
Lord Riche, 1555, told him that every heretic would have a church to himself, 
' as Joan of Kent and the Anabaptists.' The phrase ' lately stirred up agayn, 1 
in the title of Turner's book, must have reference in the past, to the Act of Con- 
vocation and to the Commission of 1538, when Cranmer and eight others were 
appointed to persecute them with all severity. Henry had required every English 
justice to enforce the laws against them, and thus to scour the whole realm. This 
stringency was not needed to hunt out a few exiled foreigners in London, Essex 
and Norfolk. Everywhere there was a growing neglect of infant baptism. One 
of Bishop Ridley's warrants of search, in 1550, demanded, ' whether any speaketh 
against baptism of infants.' Even Hooper was suspected on that question. Before 
he was nominated for the bishopric he held : ' We may not doubt of the salvation of 
the infants of Christians that die before they be christened ; ' showing that such 



I^Bfi 




BURNING OF ANNE ASKEW AND OTHERS AT SMITHFIELD. 



ANNE ASKEW. 151 

opinions Avere no bar to public confidence. But Ridley had a mania for infant 
baptism, and in 1553 ordered that all the children in his diocese ' be christened by 
the priest ;' and in his 'Declaration of the Lord's Supper' we find him talking 
such superstition as this : ' The bread indeed, sacramen tally, is changed into the 
body of Christ, as the water in baptism is sacramentally changed into the fountain 
of regeneration, and yet the material substance thereof remaineth all one, as was 
before.' A congregation of Baptists was found in London in 1575, twenty-seven 
of whom were imprisoned, and two burnt in Smithfield ; and the sect can be 
traced by their blood all through the century, aided by the light of Burnet, Fuller 
and Fox. 

Tradition connects the name of Anne Askew with the Baptists. She was a 
thorough Protestant, a firm friend of Joan Boucher, and a helper to her in circu- 
lating the Bible and other religious books privately in the palace. She was the 
youngest daughter of Sir William Askew, was thoroughly educated, being as 
delicate and gentle a spirit as ever ascended from Smithfield to paradise. She was 
intimate with Queen Catharine Parr, and so fell a victim to Bishop Gardiner's craft, 
he expecting to attaint her majesty of heresy through Anne, who was but four 
and twenty years of age. Much of her time, day and night, was spent in prayer ; 
she reveled in the freshness of the Gospel, and her frank, meek, unsuspecting sim- 
plicity won the queen's heart. She was arrested and thrown into the Tower on 
the charge that she rejected the mass. There she was put to the rack, but her 
clear and calm mind would neither criminate herself nor Catharine. Hence, when 
Bishop Gardiner and Chancellor Wriothesley saw that their policy was to be 
thwarted, the chancellor demanded that Sir Anthony Knevett should torment her 
further. This the lieutenant of the Tower refused, when Wriothesley threw off 
his gown, and drew the rack so severely that he almost tore her body to pieces. 
She endured this with such firm trust in God and such lofty courage that she 
seems like an angel of light amongst her tormentors. She had various hearings, in 
which her harmless wit overpowered her "foes. The lord mayor demanded of her: 
1 Say est thou that the priests cannot make the body of Christ?' She answered : 
' I say so, my lord ; for I have read that God made man, but that man can make 
God I have never yet read.' Qu. 'What if a mouse eat of the bread after the 
consecration ? What shall become of the mouse, thou foolish woman ? ' Ans. 
' What shall become of her say you, my lord ? ' He replied : ' I say that that mouse 
is damned ! ' She artlessly rejoined, to his lordship's chagrin : ' Alack, poor 
mouse ! ' When condemned to be burnt, her torture forbade her to walk to the 
stake, and she was carried in a chair. There a written pardon was offered to her 
from the king if she would recant. She calmly turned her eyes away, and fell in 
the flames a sacrifice to Jesus, 1546, before she was five and twenty. Shaxton, 
the apostate, preached at her burning, and a disgusting scene followed. The chan- 
cellor, the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Bedford, the lord mayor, and other 

12 



152 JOAN BOUCHER 

dignitaries feasted their eyes on her and the three who perished with her, seated 
on a bench under the shadow of St. Bartholomew's church. A rumor spread that 
benevolent hands had put gun-powder about the martyrs to shorten their misery. 
These cravens were filled with terror for their own safety, lest the powder should 
cast the fagots where they sat. They could gloat upon the heroine, whose love for 
Christ was reducing her to ashes, but sat trembling lest the brands should touch 
them. Jesus, rising from his throne, welcomed her to a security which these 
selfish cowards could never disturb again. 

Four years afterwards, under Edward YL, we have the fearful martyrdom of 
Joan Boucher, of Kent, probably of Eythorne, near Canterbury, where there was a 
Baptist assembly. She was a lady of note, possessing large wealth, and was well 
known at the palace in the days of Henry and Edward. With her friend Anne 
Askew she was devoted to the study and circulation of Tyndale's translation, which 
had been printed at Cologne, 1534. Strype says that she carried copies of this 
prohibited book under her clothing on her visits to the court ; and very likely to 
the prisons also, which she often visited, using her wealth to relieve those who 
suffered for Jesus' sake. She was charged with various heresies, and was arrested, 
May, 1549. Amongst other things, she denied that the Virgin Mary was sinless by 
nature, insisting that like other women she needed to rejoice 'in God her Saviour/ 
as she herself said. Joan neither denied the proper humanity of Jesus nor that he 
was Mary's son. But she held, with many others of her day, that he became man 
of her ' faith,' not of her flesh, lest he should inherit her sinful taint ; yet, she 
believed in Christ's miraculous incarnation, and in him as ' that holy thing ' born 
of Mary. Her idea was a mere speculation, or, as Vaughn expresses it, -'a subtle 
fancy,' not in itself half so weak as the notion of Mary's own immaculate con- 
ception, manufactured to meet the conclusion which Joan wished to avoid, namely, 
the peccability of Christ's humanity. On this frivolous quiddity was this noble 
woman kept a year and a half under the hair-splitting batteries of Cranmer, Ridley, 
Whitehead, Hutchinson, Cecil, Lord Chancellor Riche, and others of the Protestant 
Inquisition ; more is the pity that they had no better business. She was examined 
and cross-examined, entreated and threatened, all to no purpose. Neal, Burnet and 
Philpot have affected to treat her as 'weak,' 'vain' and 'fanatic,' charges which 
their manliness had better have applied to her learned tormentors ; for her recorded 
examinations show more of these infirmities in them than in her. They did not 
evince one thoroughly amiable trait in the whole transaction, while she displayed an 
acute and powerful mind, moved by a warm and impulsive heart. 

True, she rejected their notion of Mary's sinlessness and demanded Scripture, 
for their teaching, while they had none to give ; then, she gave none for her own 
speculations, and that was about all of consequence between them, on this issue. 
The whole farce was a small and mean business for men of their cast and cloth, and 
if she were an empty-headed woman, as they pretended, they honored themselves 



JOAN BOUCHER BURNT. 1 S3 

but little in spending eighteen months of their time and labor on her figment, for 
she well held her own with the whole learned and malignant crowd of them. Lord 
Riche says, that he kept her at his own house for ' a fortnight,' and had Cranmer 
and Ridley visit and reason with her daily. Ridley bent all his eloquence upon her 
mind, but could not shake her convictions. Her judges called her every thing but 
the lady which her parentage, position and character demanded, and they felt 
terribly grieved when her insulted patience told them the plain truth, in more 
polite language than their own. 'Marry,' said she, 'it is a goodly matter to con- 
sider your ignorance. It is not long ago since you burned Anne Askew for a piece 
of bread, and yet you came yourselves soon after to believe and profess the same 
doctrine for which you burned her. And now, forsooth, you will burn me for a 
piece of flesh, and in the end you will come to believe this also.' Did Thomas 
Cranmer and Nicholas Ridley remember her true words in the flames, and did they 
help to light them through the fire ? Fox tried hard to save her, and to induce 
John Rogers to help him. Rogers refused, thought that she ought to be burnt, and 
spoke lightly of death by burning, but then he did not dream of being chained to the 
stake himself. Fox, pitying her, seized the hand of his friend Rogers and replied : 
' Well, it may so happen that you yourself will have your hands full of this mild 
burning.' Whether he had or not, his poor wife proved the force of Fox's pro- 
phetic apprehension when she stood with her eight children and saw her husband, 
consumed to ashes, five years later. 

Joan Boucher suffered amongst the fagots, May 2, 1550, to the eternal disgrace 
of all concerned. Common decency might have spared her the mockery of having: 
Bishop Scorey preach to her while at the stake and vilify her there, under pretense 
of pious exhortation. Yet, possibly, her last act did him a service which he much 
needed, and which had never been done to him before. Her sermon to him is 
immortal, while his to her has long since been forgotten. Listening to him just as 
her soul ascended to heaven in the flame, she said in reply : ' You lie like a rogue. 
Go read the Scriptures ! ' Much needless ink has been shed on an attempt to show 
that Edward stained her death-warrant with tears when he signed it, because Cran- 
mer clamored for her life. . But Hallam long since said that this royal tear-scene 
should be dropped from history, though detailed by Burnet. And the young 
Tudor well sustains Hallam from his private journal, which is any thing but 
tearful. With his own hand he wrote : ' Joan Boucher, otherwise called Joan of 
Kent, was bm-nt for holding that Christ was not incarnate of the Virgin Mary, 
being condemned the year previous, but kept in hope of conversion ; and the 30th 
of April the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Ely were to persuade her, but 
she withstood them and reviled the preacher that preached at her death.' So much 
for his Journal, but there is no proof that Edward signed her death-warrant at all. 
This was seldom done by the monarch, and in her case it was issued by the Council 
to the Lord Chancellor. On the authority of Bruce, editor of the works of Hutch- 



1B4 EENBRICK TERWOORT. 

inson, Parker Society edition, the following is taken from a minute of the Council 
itself, dated April 27, 1550. 'A warrant to the L. Chancellor to make oat a writt 
to the shireff of London for the execucon of Johan of Kent, condempned to be 
burned for certein detestable opinions of heresie.' 10 

Hendeick Tekwookt, a Fleming by birth, and of a fine mind, another Baptist 
martyr of note, was burned in Smithfield, June 22, 1575. He was but five and 
twenty, had rejected infant baptism, and held that a Christian should not make oath 
or bear arms. While in prison he wrote a Confession of Faith, in which he said : 
'We must abstain from willful sins if we would be saved, namely, from adultery, 
fornication, witchcraft, sedition, bloodshed, cursing and stealing, . . . hatred and 
envy. They who do such things shall not possess the kingdom of God.' He also 
■set forth that the ' Anabaptists ' ' believe and confess that magistrates are set and 
"Ordained of God, to punish the evil and protect the good,' that they pray for them 
•and are subject to them in every good work, and that they revere the 'gracious 
queen ' as a sovereign. He sent a copy to Elizabeth, but her heart was set against 
him and his people, as hard as the nether millstone, and this young son of God 
must die because he would not make his conscience her footstool. Bishops Laud 
and Whitgift hated him and the Baptists, the latter dealing in this heartless slander : 
' They give honor and reverence to none in authority, they seek the overthrow of 
commonwealths and states of government, they are full of pride and contempt, their 
whole interest is schismatic and to be free from all laws, to live as they list ; they 
feign an austerity of life and manners, and are great hypocrites.' When he comes 
to the dangerous method of specification, he virtually admits his slander. He 
berates them for complaining : ' That their mouths are stopped, not by God's word, 
but by the authority of the magistrate. They assert that the civil magistrate has no 
authority in ecclesiastical matters, and ought not to meddle in cases of religion and 
faith, and that no man ought to be compelled to faith and religion ; and lastly, they 
complain much of persecution, and brag that they defend their cause not with 
words only, but by the shedding of their blood.' u 

Terwoort was not an English subject, but, persecuted in his own land for his 
love to Christ, he fled and asked protection of a Protestant queen, the head of the 
English Church, and she roasted him alive for his misplaced confidence. Nor was his 
a singular case. Bishop Jewel complains of a ' large and unauspicious crop of Ana- 
baptists ' in Elizabeth's reign, and she not only ordered them out of her kingdom, 
but in good earnest kindled the fires to burn them. Sir James Mackintosh says 
that no Catholic was martyred in Edward's reign, and happy had it been could he 
have written that the virgin Queen also avoided a Baptist holocaust. Marsden 
thinks that the Baptists were the most numerous dissenters from the Established 
Church in her reign, and Camden affirms that she insisted on their leaving the 
kingdom on pain of imprisonment and confiscation of property. Yet even this did 
not satisfy her implacable hate, as a real Tudor. She pursued them more and more, 



BROWNISTS. J S3 

until they were driven in all directions, some being put to death ; but the large part 
of them fled to Holland, where at this time they enjoyed more toleration. Dr. 
Some, however, an English clergyman of note in his day, informs us that they had 
several Gecret 'conventicles' in London, and that several of their ministers had been 
educated at the universities. In 1589, he wrote a treatise, attacking them and their 
faith. His charges against the Baptists were : That they insisted on maintaining all 
ministers of the Gospel by the voluntary contributions of the people ; that the civil 
power has no right to make and impose ecclesiastical laws ; that the people have the 
right to choose their own pastors; that the High Commission Court was an anti- 
Christian usurpation ; that those who are qualified to preach ought not to be hin- 
dered by the civil power ; that though the Lord's Prayer is a rule and foundation of 
petition, it is not to be used as a form, for no form of prayer should be bound on 
the Church; that the baptism of the Church of Rome is invalid ; that a Gospel con- 
stitution and discipline are essential to a true Church; and that the worship of God 
in the Church of England is, in many things, defective. For these views they were 
accounted 'heretics,' and suffered so severely that from 1590 to 1630 we find but 
slight trace of Baptists in England. 

About 1579 Archbishop Sandys declared both of the Brownists and Baptists : 
' It is the property of froward sectaries, whose inventions cannot abide the light, to 
make obscure conventicles,' and he would compel them to attend the Established 
Church. He was the more disturbed because so many 'heretical' exiles from Hol- 
land had sought refuge in England, for it is said that in 1571 there were nearly 
4,000 Dutch and other foreigners in Norwich alone, many of them Dutch Baptists, 
from whom Weingarten thinks that Brown borrowed his best ideas of a Gospel 
Church. Robert Brown, chaplain to the Duke of Norfolk, and Robert Harrison, the 
master of a grammar school, were Puritans, and went to Norwich in 1580. There 
they mingled with these exiles, and formed an independent Church, but the bishops 
had no rest till Brown was banished. He, with Harrison and about fifty others, in 
1581, fled to Middleburg, in Zealand, and formed a Church, which became extinct 
because of divisions, and Brown returned to the Church of England. Elizabeth 
was especially set against the Separatists, and in 1597, Francis Johnson, pastor of 
their Church in London, with some of his flock, escaped to Amsterdam. On the 
accession of James I., 1603, the four sects of England were, the Roman Catholic, 
the Church of England, divided into the Puritans, who conformed in some things, 
and others who conformed in all, the Brownists, afterwards known as Separatists and 
Independents, and a few Baptists, who were disowned of all. The Gospel seed 
sown by Brown in his own country took root, and notwithstanding his return to 
the English Church, Sir Walter Raleigh said, in 1592, that there were 20,000 
Brownists in England. John Robinson, a firmer and more steady mind, went to 
Norwich, then to Scrooby, 1600-1601:, cast the Brownists in a healthier mold, and 
they became known as Independents. 



CHAPTER III. 

BRITISH BAPTISTS— JOHN SMYTH— COMMONWEALTH. 

REV. JOHN SMYTH, educated at Cambridge, became vicar of Gainsborough, 
Lincolnshire, and a determined foe of the Separatists. After examining 
their sentiments for ' nine months,' however, he renounced episcopacy as unscript- 
ural and was cast into the Marshalsea Prison, Southwark, but being liberated, he 
became pastor of the Separatist Church at Gainsborough in 1602. William Brew- 
ster was a Separatist at Gainsborough, but removed to Scrooby near Bawtry, where 
Clifton became pastor, with Robinson as assistant. Both these little flocks, how- 
ever, were driven from their homes, Smyth fleeing to Amsterdam, probably in 1606, 
where he joined Johnson. Clifton and Robinson followed in 1608, settling first at 
Amsterdam, then at Leyden. In 1620 a portion of the Church at Leyden migrated 
to Plymouth, New England, with Brewster as elder, and formed the first Congre- 
gational Church in America. On arriving in Amsterdam, Smyth at first united 
with the 'ancient' English Separatist Church there, in charge of Johnson, with 
Ainsworth as teacher. At that time the Separatists of Amsterdam were in warm 
controversy on the true nature of a visible Church. Smyth published a work on the 
fallen Church, entitled ' The Character of the Beast,' and a tractate of seventy-one 
pages, against infant baptism and in favor of believers baptism. For this he was 
disfellowshiped by the first Church, his former friends charging him with open war 
against God's covenant, and the murder of the souls of babes and sucklings, by 
depriving them of the visible seal of salvation. 

This led Smyth, Helwys, Morton and thirty-six others to form a new Church 
which should practice believer's baptism and reject infant baptism. Finding 
themselves unbaptized, they were in a strait. They were on good terms with 
the Dutch Baptists, but would not receive their baptism, lest this should recognize 
them as a true Church ; for they believed that the true Churches of Christ had 
perished. Besides, Smyth did not believe with them in the unlawfulness of a 
Christian to serve as a magistrate, nor on the freedom of the will and the dis- 
tinctive points of Calvinism, he being an Arminian, which points he considered 
vital. He believed that the Apostolical Church model was lost, and determined on 
its recovery. He renounced the figment of a historical, apostolic succession, insist- 
ing that where two or three organize according to the teachings of the New 
Testament, they form as true a Church of Christ as that of Jerusalem, though they 
stand alone in the earth. With the design of restoring this pattern, he baptized 






THE FIRST ENGLISH GENERAL BAPTIST CHURCH. 1S7 

himself on his faith in Christ in 1608, then baptized Thomas Helwys with about forty 
others, and so formed a new Church in Amsterdam. In most things this body was 
Baptist, as that term is now used, with some difference. This is established by 
their four extant forms, of what is in substance, one confession of faith. Two of 
these were written by Smyth and are signed by others, and the other two came 
from the same company, probably under the lead of Helwys. Their theology is 
Arminian, they claim that the Church is composed of baptized believers only, 
that ' only the baptized are to taste of the Lord's Supper,' and that the magistrates 
shall not, by virtue of their office, meddle with matters of conscience in religion. 

Smyth and his congregation met in a large bakery for a time, but he soon saw 
his mistake in his hasty Se-baptism, and offered to join the Dutch congregation of 
Baptists known as ' Waterlanders,' under the pastoral charge of Lubberts Gerrits. 
Part of his congregation, under the leadership of Helwys, would not unite with 
Smyth in this movement, but excluded him from their fellowship and warned the 
Dutch Church not to receive him. Soon after this Smyth died, August, 1612, and 
the Dutch body recognized his company. Meanwhile the question had arisen with 
Helwys and his followers whether they were doing right by remaining in Holland, 
to avoid persecution in England, and at the peril of their lives they had returned to 
London, in 1611, and formed the first general Baptist Church there, 1612-14. 
Little is known of its history beyond the general statement that the Dutch Bap- 
tists of London rallied around Helwys and John Morton, his successor, that it was 
located in Newgate, and that in 1626 it numbered one hundred and fifty persons. 
Helwys published a work defending their course in braving persecution, and 
probably translated a Dutch treatise on baptism in 1618. No account is given of 
his death, but Taylor dates it at ' about ' 1623. Masson says, in his ' Life of 
Milton,' ' This obscure Baptist congregation seems to have become the depository 
for all England of the absolute principle of liberty of conscience expressed in the 
Amsterdam Confession as distinct from the more stinted principle advocated by the 
general body of the Independents. Not only did Helwisse's folks differ from 
the Independents generally on the subject of infant baptism and dipping ; they 
differed also on the power of the magistrate in matters of belief and conscience. 
It was, in short, from this little dingy meeting-house, somewhere in Old London, 
that there flashed out first in England the absolute doctrine of religious liberty.' 

So far as is known, the Amsterdam Confession of the Baptists is the first 
which laid down the full principle of religious freedom, after the Swiss Confession 
of 1527. It is absolutely the first now known to take positive ground in favor of 
the salvation of all infants who die in infancy, from the time that Augustine 
taught the detestable doctrine that unbaptized infants who die are not ad- 
mitted into heaven. Wickliff held that they are saved without baptism, but his 
doctrine was not formulated by a Christian body. Also, in defining the limits of 
Church and State, they came down to those foundation principles which the Inde- 



168 LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE PROCLAIMED. 

pendents had not reached. Ainsworth's Confession said : ' The government should 
protect true believers, strengthen the proper administration of the true worship, 
punish transgressors, and uproot false worship.' Helwys understood things better. 
He sent a copy of his work on religious liberty with a letter to James I., in which 
he boldly says : ' The kiug is a mortal man and not God, therefore hath no power 
over the immortal souls of his subjects, to make laws and ordinances for them, and 
to set spiritual lords over them. If the king has authority to make spiritual lords 
and laws, then he is an immortal God, and not a mortal man.' No English king 
had heard such words before. The Independents were far in advance of the Puri- 
tans and the Presbyterians on this subject ; but even Johnson said : ' Princes may 
and ought to abolish all false worship, and to establish the true worship and 
ministry appointed by God in his word, commanding and compelling their sub- 
jects to come into and practice none other than this.' The Amsterdam Baptist 
Confession bravely said : ' The magistrate is not, by virtue of his office, to meddle 
with religion or matters of conscience, to force and compel men to this or that 
form of religion or doctrine, but to leave the Christian religion free to every man's 
conscience, and to handle only civil transgressors, for Christ is the only King and 
Lawgiver of the Church and conscience.' 

When the Brownists left the English State Church, they objected to its hier- 
archy, liturgy, constitution and government, as antichristian. Smyth, therefore, 
broke with them on the issue that if that Church was apostate, as a daughter of 
Rome, then its clergy were not qualified to administer Christ's ordinances. The 
Brownists, however, considered them valid, and called the English Church their 
' mother,' while they denounced her as ' harlot ' and ' Babylon ; ' but Smyth, 
having been christened in her pale, concluded that he was yet unbaptized. Bishop 
Hall caught this point keenly, and was severe on the Brownists when he opposed 
Smyth. He wrote : 

' You that cannot abide a false Church, why do you content yourselves with 
a false sacrament ? especially since our Church, not being yet gathered to Christ, 
is no Church, and therefore her baptism a nullity ! . . . He (Smyth) tells you 
true ; your station is unsafe ; either you must forward to him, or back to us. . . . 
You must go forward to Anabaptism, or come back to us. All your rabbins can- 
not answer that charge of your rebaptized brother. ... If our baptism be good, 
then is our constitution good. . . . What need you to surfeit of another man's 
trencher ? . . . Show you me where the Apostles baptized in a hason ! ' 

Smyth having rejected infant baptism also on its merits as a human insti- 
tution, Ainsworth said, in 1609, that he had gone ' over to the abomination of the 
Anabaptists.' Bishop Hall wrote the above words in 1610, calling him then ' your 
rebaptized brother,' which indicates that he left the Brownists about 1608. His 
enemies have represented him as hair-brained, fickle and fond of novelty. But 
Schaff-Herzog does him the justice to say that : 'Seized by the time-spirit, he was 
restless, fervid, earnest and thoroughgoing. ... A man of incorruptible simplicity, 



SMYTHS SE-BAPTIS1T. 139 

beautiful humility, glowing charity, a fair scholar and a good preacher.' His 
writings show that he thirsted for the truth ; and several times he shifted his 
positions before he felt sure that he stood on solid ground, a fact creditable to his 
convictions and moral courage. As to his Se-baptism the following things seem 
clear, namely : 

1. That he did baptize himself tchen he cast aside his infant baptism. He 
believed that no man had a pure baptism or could administer the same, not only 
because of the corruption of baptism, as then practiced, but because of moral de- 
fection in all the Churches. This was no new doctrine. The Donatists held that 
the validity of baptism was affected by the bad life of the administrator: and 
Cyprian asks : ' Who can consecrate water who is himself unholy, and has not the 
Holy Spirit '. ' But Smyth was feeling his way far back beyond this to the 
Gospel ground, that the validity of baptism has no regard to the administrator, 
as it is governed by the faith of the candidate. He denied the need of all visible 
succession in the ministry and ordinances, and yet his sincere but impulsive mind 
was held in secret thralldom to this subtility. He denied that the fable of an- 
tiquity is an attribute of a true Church, and yet he would found a new line of 
baptizers, to give purity to the ordinance in the future. He evidently reasoned and 
decided thus : ' Let the fallen Churches stand alone. They have turned Christ's 
ordinance out of doors and established their own, so I cut loose from them and 
throw myself directly into the hands of God. I take the last method left of hon- 
oring him, and he knows my singleness of heart. My infant baptism was 
meaningless, a pious fraud practiced upon me, and its alleged blessings are mere 
nursery pictures. They have thrown shame on the Gospel, blunted my conviction 
of truth, and put my personal faith in Christ to a deep blush. Hence I will cut 
the last thread that binds me to "the defection of Antichrist." 3 Logic took him 
to that point, but love to Christ carried him further, and he resolved to offer him- 
self to Christ in baptism, come what might, and he baptized himself, in obedience 
to an imperative sense of duty. There is a legend of Thekla, the unbaptized 
martyr, that when led out to the wild beasts, she threw herself into a trench full 
of water, and shouted, with joy: 'In the name of Jesus Christ, I am baptized on 
my last day ! ' "Without her lot, Smyth possessed the same spirit. He denied the 
arrogance that salvation is lodged in ordinances, that God has given them into the 
keeping of any body of men to dispense, rejecting whom they please. Baptism 
was to him a right and privilege from God, and because it had been forced upon 
him as a child, the extreme view of the Church now forced him, as he 
believed, to throw aside all human intervention in the matter. Tet in his Con- 
fession he explicitly expresses his faith in an accredited ministry, a regenerate body, 
but he could not trace it through one century, not to say sixteen. He concluded, 
therefore, that it made no matter whether he, being unbaptized, baptized himself, 
or another unbaptized man baptized him. This was his Puritan mode of cutting 



160 HIS GROUND OF ACTION. 

himself adrift from the last tie of popery in Protestantism. The result was the 
same, so far as baptismal succession was concerned, whether he baptized himself 
or was baptized by an unbaptized person. His entire being was impelled by that 
sentiment, and the quicksilver no more changes the weather, than eccentricity led 
him to Se-baptism. 

However mistaken he was in his reasoning, he knew, as a matter of fact, that 
nearly half the so-called countries of the world are unable to tell by record whether 
the Gospel was first preached to them by ministers or laymen, much less can their 
personal baptisms be traced. He could not tell whether the man who brought it to 
the British Isles was himself baptized, or if so, who baptized him, where, when or 
how. Smyth held his own consecration to Christ in baptism acceptable to Christ, 
and he was better satisfied with it himself, than he had ever been with his infant 
baptism, of which others had told him. These being his motives to Se-baptism, we 
may now notice that : 

2. Its proof is found in his own uncontradicted statements and those of his 
contemporaries. He defended his act by claiming that when succession is broken 
off, men are not bound to join fallen Churches : ' But may, being as yet unbaptized, 
baptize themselves, as we did, and proceed to build churches themselves.' When 
Clifton asked him by what right he baptized himself, he replied : ' As you, when 
there was not a true Church in the world, took upon you to set up a true Church. 
. . . Seeing, when all Christ's visible ordinances are lost, then two men joining 
together may make a Church, as you say, why may they not baptize, seeing they 
cannot conjoin unto Christ but by baptism ? . . . Each of them unbaptized, hath 
power to assume baptism each for himself with others in communion.' Barebone 
charges against the Baptists, 1642, that they baptized themselves by the ' Way of 
new baptizing lately begun ; ' they have no warrant from heaven, he argues, 'As had 
John the Baptist, to set up baptism themselves,' nor to baptize themselves and 
others. In Clifton's ' Plea for Infants,' 1610, he calls upon Smyth to bring 'War- 
rant from the Scripture, that you being unbaptized may baptize yourself. . . . 
Resolve me, that you can baptize yourself into the Church, being out of it, yea, and 
where there was no Church.' In the same year, 'J. H.' published a book against 
Smyth, in which he says : ' Tell me one thing, Maister Smyth, by what rule bap- 
tized you yourself? ... It was wonder you would not receive your baptism from 
the Dutch Anabaptists, but you will be holier than all.' Ainsworth, Robinson, 
Bernard and others, charge Smyth with being a Se-Baptist (self-Baptist), and he 
ijook the greatest pains to defend his own act as absolutely necessary. 

3. Whether he dipped himself is not so clear, but all the circumstances, with a 
few statements of that day, imply that he did. Those who wrote against the Bap- 
tists after 1640 make no distinction on the matter of immersion between the 
Baptists of that period and those who had continued down from 1610, nor report 
any change amongst them, from affusion or perfusion to dipping. On the contrary, 



HIS BAPTISM PROBABLY IMMERSION. 161 

they speak of them as one stock from Smyth downward. Sometimes they speak 
of him as the father of English ' Anabaptism,' and uniformly, in contempt, they call 
them ' Dippers.' Barebone says in his Discourse : ' They want a Dipper, that had 
authority from heaven as had John, whom they please to call a Dipper.' Bishop 
Hall's remark, 1610, when speaking of Smyth as 'your rebaptized brother,' is very 
significant. In scornful sarcasm he demands of the Brownists, who used affusion : 
' Show me where the Apostles baptized in a bason/ ' .' What need you to surfeit of 
another man's trencher?' The very point of his thrust implies that Smyth had 
dipped himself, contrary to their practice, and that he had Apostolic authority for 
dipping as baptism. It further implies that the meat on Smyth's 'trencher' had 
nauseated them, because, like the Apostles, he had discarded the 'bason.' Featley, 
in what Orme calls his ' ridiculous book,' ' The Dippers Dipt over Head and Ears,' 
complains of the ' new leaven,' because they dipped, and says : ' It cannot be proved 
that any of the ancient Anabaptists maintained any such position, there being three 
ways of baptizing, either by dipping, or washing, or sprinkling.' x But in this 
declaration he contradicts himself several times, as we shall see. He clearly states 
their then current practice when he says, that the sick cannot, 'After the manner of 
the Anabaptists, be carried to rivers or wells, and there be dipt and plunged in 
them.' He adds, that they held ' Weekly Conventicles, rebaptized hundreds of 
men and women together in the twilight in rivulets, and some arms of the Thames 
and elsewhere, dipping them over head and ears.' He bitterly complains that they 
' Flock in great multitudes to their Jordans, and both sexes enter the river, and are 
dipped after their manner ; ' and that they had followed these terrible practices 
' neere the place of my residence for more than twenty years.' He wrote this Jan. 
10. 1614, which would carry him back to 1621, at least. But he never accuses the 
English Baptists of substituting dipping for some other practice which they had 
previously followed. He gives not one hint that in England they had ever been 
any thing else but ' Dippers,' an unaccountable silence, if they had practiced some- 
thing else there within the previous fifty years. 

Directly to the contrary, his whole book assumes that the Baptists of his day were 
the veritable descendants of the Miinster men. He calls Storke ' The father of the 
Anabaptists of our agej and a 'blockhead' from whom 'the chiefs flew into England,' 
when he was hewn down in Germany; and makes Knipperdolling their 'Patriarch.' 
He alleges that they 'stript themselves stark naked when they flock to their Jordans 
to be dipt,' and is delighted to tell us, on the authority of Gastius, that at Yienna 
' Many Anabaptists were so tied together in chains, that they drew the other after 
them into the river, wherein they were suffocated.' This, he thought, the proper 
punishment for their sin, and bewails that their successors were treated more 
leniently in England. His words are : ' They who drew others into the whirlpool 
of error, by constraint drew one another into the river to be drowned ; and they who 
profaned baptism by a second dipping, rue it by a third immersion. But the pun- 



162 WILSON, NEAL AND MASSON. 

ishment of these Catabaptists we leave to tliem who have the legislative power in 
their hands ; who, though by present connivance they may seem to give them line, 
yet no doubt it is that they may more entangle themselves, and more easily be 
caught.' He clearly intends us to understand that these Continental Baptists had 
been immersed first as children, second on their faith, which 'profaned' the first, 
and entitled them to drowning in a ' third immersion.' He says that this ' Ana- 
baptist ' fire was subdued under the reigns of James and Elizabeth, but it had 
revived again from ' the ashes.' Amongst the ' six things ' which he charges as 
peculiar to the sect, the first is : ' That none are rightly baptized ' but those who are 
dipped, or as he loves to express it, those who ' Go into the water, and there be 
dipt over head and ears ; ' and he fails to hint that the English Baptists had ever 
done otherwise, when baptizing. Wilson's ' History of Dissenting Churches ' 
(i. p. 29, 30) says of Smyth : 

' He saw grounds to consider immersion as the true and only meaning of the word 
baptism, and that it should be administered to those alone who were capable of profess- 
ing their faith in Christ. The absurdity of Smyth's conduct appeared in nothing more 
conspicuously than in this: That not choosing to apply to the German Baptists, and 
wanting a proper administrator, he baptized himself, which procured him to be called 
a Se-baptist. Crosby, indeed, has taken great pains to vindicate him from this charge, 
though it seems with little success. His principles and conduct soon drew upon him 
an host of opponents, the chief of whom were Johnson, Ainsworth, Robinson, Jessop 
and Clifton. The controversy begun in 1606, about the time Smyth settled in 
Amsterdam. Soon afterward he removed with his followers to Leyden, where he 
continued to publish various books in defense of his opinions.' 

Neal says that he ' Settled with his disciples at Ley, where being at a loss for a 
proper administrator of the ordinance of baptism, he plunged himself, and then per- 
formed the ceremony upon others.' 2 In Smyth's case, it is nothing to the purpose 
whether the Mennonites, Waterlanders, or those ' Anabaptists ' called ' Aspersi ' 
used affusion or not, as he repudiated them all. There is not a particle of evidence 
that he affused himself, and it is a cheap caricature to imagine that he disrobed him- 
self, walked into a stream, then lifted handfuls of water, pouring then liberally upon 
his own head, shoulders and chest. We have the same reason for believing that he 
immersed Helwys, as that he dipped himself. Masson writes : ' Helwisse's folk 
differed from the Independents generally on the subject of infant baptism and 
dipping.' And as he thinks that Busher was a member of that ' congregation ' in 
1614, the man who described a baptized person as one ' dipped for dead in the 
water,' the fair inference is carried that the first General Baptist Church of London 
was composed of immersed ' folk.' 

Notwithstanding that Edward Wightman, a Baptist of Burton-on-Trent, had 
been burnt at Lichfield, April 11th, 1611, and that persecution of his brethren con- 
tinued without martyrdom, they had so increased in 1626 that they had eleven 
General Baptist Churches in England : which, as Featley sourly says, had increased 
to forty-seven of various sorts in 1644. Some claim that a Particular Baptist 



A PARTICULAR BAPTIST CHURCH ORGANIZED. 163' 

Church was formed at Shrewsbuiy in 1627, and another at Bickenkall, near Taunton, 
in 1630; but it is more likely that the first of this order was established by John 
Spilsbury at Wapping in 1633. These terms originated in the fact that the Armin- 
ian Baptists held to a general and the Calvinistic Baptists to a particular atone- 
ment ; hence they adopted these titles. 

Spilsbury's Church came into existence on this wise. In 1616 the first congre- 
gation of Independents had been gathered in London, under the pastoral care of 
Henry Jacob, who was succeeded by John Lathrop. A number of this society 
came to reject infant baptism and were permitted to form a distinct Church, 
September 12, 1633, with Spilsbury for their pastor ; and, according to Lord 
Selborn, in the St. Mary's Chapel case, Norwich, for a number of years after its 
formation it was a Strict Communion body, so far as the Supper was concerned. 
Crosby says that 'most or all of these received a new baptism.' In 1638 William 
Kiffin, Thomas Wilson and others, left Lathrop's Independent Church, then under 
charge of Mr. Jessey, and united with Spilsbury's Church. Wilson, in his ' History 
of Dissenting Churches,' sa # ys that some time after this, disputes arose in Spilsbury's 
Church on the subject of ' mixed communion,' and Kiffin with others withdrew 
to form a new Church, Devonshire Square. At page 410 he explains what he 
means by ' mixed communion ; ' it was not the reception of unbaptized persons 
either to membership or the Supper, but ' mixed communion ' with unimmersed min- 
isters. His words are : ' In a course of time a controversy arose in that Church on 
the propriety of admitting persons to preach who had not been baptized by 
immersion. This produced an amicable separation, headed by Mr. Kiffin, who 
seems to have been averse to the plan of mixed communion, but the two societies 
kept up a friendly correspondence.' Not only that, but they cooperated in resisting 
the contumely of their enemies and in building up each other in the faith. By 
1643 the Calvinistic Baptist Churches in and about London had increased to seven, 
while the non-Calvinistic Churches numbered thirty-nine, forty-six in all. The 
English Calvinistic Churches, together with a French Church of the same faith, eight 
in all, issued a Confession of Faith in 1643, of fift}' articles ; not to erect a standard 
of faith, but to close the mouths of slanderers. Its preface says of their enemies : 

' They, finding us out of that common road-way themselves walk, have smote 
us and taken away our veil, that so we may by them be odious in the eyes of all 
that behold us, and in the hearts of all that think upon us, which they have done 
both in pulpit and print, charging us with holding free-will, falling away from 
grace, denying original sin, disclaiming a magistracy, denying to assist them either 
in persons or purse in any of their lawful commands, doing acts unseemly in the 
dispensing the ordinance of baptism, not to be named amongst Christians. All 
which charges we disclaim as notoriously untrue, though by reason of these calumnies 
cast upon us, many that fear God are discouraged and forestalled in harboring a good 
thought, either of us or what we profess, and many that know not God (are) encour- 
aged, if they can find the place of our meeting, to get together in clusters to stone us, 
as looking upon us as a people holding such things as that we are not worthy to live.' 



164 THE CONFUSION OF 16 43. 

This Confession was signed by sixteen ministers, two from each Church ; and 
amongst them both John Spilsbury and William Kiffin, a significant fact in its 
bearings on the ground of their after separation. A second edition was published 
in 1644, and a third in 1646, the last with an appendix by Benjamin Coxe. Edward 
Barber, the minister of the Church meeting in Bishopsgate Street, had published 
a treatise in 1641, to prove that 'our Lord Christ ordained dipping.' Now, in this 
' Confession,' Art. XXXIII says, that a Church is ' a company of visible saints . . . 
being baptized into the faith of the Gospel ; ' and Art. XXXIX, that baptism is ' to 
be dispensed upon persons professing faith, or that are made disciples, who, upon 
profession of faith, ought to be baptized, and after to partake of the Lord's 
Supper.' Article XL defines the manner of baptizing ' to be dipping or plung- 
ing the whole body under water.' These articles, signed by Spilsbury as the fifth 
name and Kiffin as the eleventh, show that these two worthies were entirely agreed 
as to the question of immersion on a confession of faith in Christ as a prerequisite 
to the Supper, and that Wilson was right in stating that the disturbing element 
between them related to ' mixed communion,' but not amongst members of the 
same Church. They must all be 'dipped under water' on entering the 'company 
of saints ' made ' visible ' by this expression of their faith as ' disciples,' and ' after ' 
that ' partake of the Lord's Supper.' Spilsbury and Kiffin being agreed here, as 
their signatures show, the controversy between them was ' on the propriety of ad- 
mitting persons to preach who had not been baptized by immersion.' Wilson says 
that Kiffin 'seemed averse' to mixed communion after that stamp, and left 
amicably, so that their fellowship was not disturbed at all on the subject treated of 
in the ' Confession,' namely, communion at the Lord's Supper. 

A most interesting branch of this history connects the name of Henry Jessey 
with this period. Henry Jacob continued to serve the Independent Church 
which he founded in 1616, until 1624, when he removed to America, and was 
succeeded as pastor by John Lathrop, who also went to America in 1634, and settled 
first at Scituate and then at Barnstable, Mass. Then Jessey became its supply in 
1635, and its pastor in 1637. At one time or another this Church was seriously dis- 
turbed on the subject of baptism. Wilson tells us that under Mr. Lathrop's min- 
istry ' some of the society entertained doubts as to the validity of baptism 
performed by their own minister ; aud one person who indulged these scruples 
carried his child to be rebaptized in the parish church.' This giving offense to 
several persons, the subject was discussed at a general meeting of the society ; 
when the question was put it was carried in the negative, and resolved by the 
majority not to make any declaration at present, ' whether or no parish Churches 
were true Churches.'' This action led to the withdrawal of those ' who were dissat- 
isfied about the lawfulness of infant baptism,' and to the formation of the 
Calvinistic Baptist Church of 1633, under Spilsbury's ministry. Under the 
ministry of Jessey others left and united with the Baptists ; six persons in 1638, a 



SPILSBURY'S CHURCH IMMERSIONIST. 1 65 

larger number in 1641, and a greater number still in 1643. These movements 
created frequent debates in the Independent Church. 'This,' says Wilson, 'put 
Mr. Jessey upon studying the controversy. The result was that he himself also 
changed his sentiments. . . . His first conviction was about the mode of baptism ; 
and though he continued for two or three years to baptize children, he did it by 
immersion. About the year 1644 the controversy with respect to the subjects of 
baptism was revived in his Church, when several gave up infant baptism, and 
among the rest Mr. Jessey. . . . 1645 he submitted to immersion, which was 
performed by Mr. Hanserd Knollys.' 3 

It seems that Jessey's Church had become large by 1640, and by ' mutual con- 
sent ' had divided, ' just half being with Praise-God Barebone, and the other half 
with Mr. Jessey.' They were in controversy on the subjects and method of 
baptism, Blunt and Jessey being the leaders of those who had embraced Baptist 
views, numbering fifty-three, and Barebone the leader of those who remained 
Pedobaptists. The fact that the eight Churches formulated baptism as a ' dipping 
or plunging of the whole body under water,' is sufficient to show that they them- 
selves had been organized and had grown up in that order ; as well as the 
declaration in the preface, that they had been accused of ' unseemly acts in dispensing 
the ordinance of baptism,' namely, by immersing nude persons. If they had not 
immersed from their origin, they were slandered in the statement that they im- 
mersed at all, to say nothing of alleged indecencies, ' not to be named by Christians,' 
in connection with their immersions. To say that Spilsbury's Church immersed 
in 1643, but had not practiced dipping from 1633, is to charge that Church with 
changing the form of its ordinance, and with repelling a slander to which it had 
never been subjected ; for the accusation that it immersed naked persons carried 
with it the charge of dipping, whether the alleged nudity were true or false. 
Here, then, we have fifty -three persons, with Jessey at their head, seeking immer- 
sion ; but they will not go for it to Spilsbury's Church, though, clearly, he had 
practiced it since 1633. And why ? According to the anonymous account 
attributed to Kiffin, because none had then, May, 1640, 'so practiced in England 
to professed believers ! ' and so they must send to Holland to import dipping ! 
What do they mean by this? 

We have already seen that the members of Jessey's Independent Church were 
great sticklers for ministerial regularity, and lodged the validity of baptism very 
largely in the administrator. Way, some of his own congregation had refused to 
acknowledge the authority of John Lathrop to baptize, and one member who be- 
lieved in infant baptism, whose child Lathrop had baptized, would not accept 
it as properly done and took his babe to the parish Church to have it baptized over 
again on the ground of this irregularity; and so sensitive were 'the majority' on 
the subject that they refused to say whether or not the parish Churches were true 
Churches. Lathrop had been trained for the Church of England at Cambridge, 



166 CONTROVERSIES ABOUT A 'VALID BAPTISM.' 

had received Episcopal ordination, and served in that ministry in Kent ; but no 
matter, having gone over to dissent, some of his own people doubted whether his 
baptisms were valid ! And there are many reasons for believing that this is a 
similar case, and that these fifty-three members of the same congregation declined 
to accept immersion from what they considered an unauthorized administrator. 
They intended to be immersed, but the English Baptists at that time were univers- 
ally accused of self-baptism, some of them having received their baptism from John 
Smyth ; and while the Baptists denied this with spirit, none of them thought of insist- 
ing on a baptismal succession, but argued that any unbaptized Christian could baptize 
if needful. This point was in hot dispute at the time. The author of ' Persecution 
for Religion Judged and Condemned,' 1615, labors hard to show that it is not 
necessary that he who baptizes should be a baptized person. Barclay and others 
suppose that John Morton, who was with Smyth and Helwys in Amsterdam, was 
the author of this book. Whether Smyth immersed them or not, it is quite clear 
that they received no baptism after that which he administered to them. Some 
time before Smyth's death he frankly retracted his error in baptizing himself and 
them ; therefore Helwys charged him as guilty of ' the sin against the Holy Ghost.' 
In his ' last book ' he shows that Helwys still held that baptism to be valid, and 
accuses him of unchristianizing all who did not walk to his ' line and level,' even 
' upon pain of damnation.' He says : ' If Master Helwys's position be true, that 
every two or three that see the truth of baptism may begin to baptize, and need 
not join to former true Churches, where they may have their baptism orderly from 
ordained ministers, then the order of the primitive Church was order for them and 
those times only, and this disorder will establish baptism of private persons.' But 
although Smyth had repudiated this doctrine which he himself had introduced, 
yet the English Baptists clearly held it at that time, and as clearly the fifty-three 
refused baptism at their hands because they held them to be irregularly baptized. 
Evidently Neal regarded the matter in this light. He pronounces Blunt's conduct 
in going over to Holland to be immersed ' strange and unaccountable ; ' but suggests 
this solution of the matter : ' Unless the Dutch Anabaptists could derive this 
pedigree in an uninterrupted line from the Apostles, the first reviver of this 
usage must have been unbaptized, and, consequently, not capable of communicating 
the ordinance to others.' 4 He understood immersion to have been revived in 
England at that time, but as the ' reviver ' was not in the immersionist succession, 
Jessey's people thought his followers incapable of immersing them. Perkins and 
others held that if a Turk should be converted, and led others to Christ, he might 
baptize them, being unbaptized himself. John Robinson had charged that the 
Baptists of England were unbaptized on the ground that they had not received 
baptism from any authorized source, having rejected the Church of England as an 
apostasy. Even the Confession of the Eight Churches seemed to aim at covering 
the case by that article which says, the ' person designed by Christ to dispense bap- 



SEEKING A BAPTISMAL SUCCESSION. 167 

tism the Scripture holds forth to be a disciple ; it being nowhere tied to a particular 
office or person extraordinarily sent,' How natural it was, then, for these brethren 
from an Independent Church to conclude that the immersion of the English Bap- 
tists being irregular, they not being properly immersed, therefore, that they must 
send to Holland for a pare baptism through a cpialified administrator. 

This charge was reiterated with great asperity. In 1691 Collins denies that 
they received their baptism from John Smyth, pronouncing the allegation ' abso- 
lutely untrue.' Yet, even later than that, John "Wall persisted in declaring that 
their baptism was 'Abhorred of all Christians ; for they received their baptism from 
one Mr. Smyth, who baptized himself ; one who was cast out of a Church.' Edward 
Hutchinson, however, 1676, referring to this very case says, that after this godly 
band of men had resolved to lay aside infant baptism, ' Fears, tremblings and temp- 
tations did attend them, lest they should be mistaken. . . . The great objection was 
the want of an administrator • which, as I have heard, was removed by sending 
certain messengers to Holland, whence they were supplied.' 5 The greater part of 
the English Baptists looked upon this act as savoring of popery, it looked like 
seeking a baptismal succession. And the fact, that it ignored their baptism, may 
account for the use of the above article in the Confession. It was held that the 
Collegiants of Holland had received their immersion from the Polish Baptists, and 
when Batte, one of their teachers, had immersed Blunt there, he returned to 
England in 1641, and immersed Blacklock, one of the fifty-three, and they the rest 
of that company. But they never immersed the eight Churches ; they having been 
dipped before the fifty-three became Baptists at all ; they and their descendants 
have continued that practice ever since. 

The rapid growth of the English Baptists at this time, in influence and numbers, 

aroused such fiery but strong minds as Thomas Edwards and Dr. Featley amazingly. 

In the Dedicatory Epistle to his ' Gangrsena,' published 1646, he tells Parliament that 

' The sects have been growing upon us, even from the first year of your sitting, and 

have every year increased more and more, things have been bad a great while, but 

this last year they have grown intolerable.' He speaks of an order of February 16th, 

1643, in which Parliament had ' hindered ' unordained ministers ' from preaching 

and dipping,' but says that they were ' bought off and released by some above.' On 

p. 16 he combats the opinion that the 'army commanders and common soldiers' 

were Independents. No ; ' there would not be found one in six of that way,' for 

the army was ' made up and commanded of Anabaptism.' He says, on p. 58, that 

the 'Anabaptists' have 'stirred up the people to embody themselves, and to join 

in church fellowship, setting up independent government, rebaptizing and dipping 

many hundreds.' He denounces them on pp. 65, QQ because ' They send forth into 

several counties in this kingdom, from their Churches in London, as church acts, 

several emissaries members of their Churches, to preach and spread their errors, to 

dip, to gather and settle Churches ; ' yea. ' some of them went into the Worth as far 
13 



168 MAJOR-GENERAL HARRISON. 

as York,' where some were rebaptized 'in the river Ouse,' and the water was so hot 
as if it had been in the middle of summer." On p. 95, part ii, he declares that 
Independents in armies, county, city, (were) falling daily to Anabaptists.' On 
p. 149 he says that they abounded at Hull, Beverley. York and Halifax. On p. 146, 
he tells Parliament that Oats went into the country from town to town ' dipping 
many in rivers,' the rich at ten shillings a head, and the poor at two shillings and six 
pence. Part iii, p. 139, shows him cut to the heart, because the Baptists ' kill ten- 
der young persons and ancient, with dipping them all over in rivers, in the depth 
of winter.' His heart is comforted, however, on p. 194, to be able to say that 
' We shall find no Church sounder for doctrine than the Church of Scotland, nor 
greater enemies, not only against papacy and prelacy, but against Anabaptists.' 
But as he could not help himself, he nobly proposes, on p. 108, to prove a certain 
story which he has told, if his opponent will join the Presbyterians in a petition 
to Parliament for the forbidding of all dipping and rebaptization, and exemplary 
punishment of all such dippers as Brother Kifiin.' Yet he tells us frankly, on 
p. 178, that he never saw Denne, Clarkson, Paul Hobson, Lamb, Web, Marshal 
and many others : ' I know them not so much as by face, having never so much to 
my knowledge as seen them.' 

The Confession of the Eight Churches was issued in the midst of the revolution, 
which, for the time, overthrew the Stuart monarchy. The issue between king and 
Parliament was still doubtful, as Marston Moor and Naseby were not yet fought. 
With great unanimity the Baptists enrolled themselves on the side of the people, 
and fought bravely for liberty, civil and religious. It has been inferred that Bunyan 
fought with the Cavaliers ; mainly, from his silence on the subject. But at this 
time he was not a Baptist, and so there is no clear case that any Baptist drew his 
sword for the king. Their choice is easily explained. They had suffered tyranny 
too long and hated it too much to fight for a prince who was a tyrant on principle, 
who had Laud, the bigot and persecutor, for his spiritual adviser. Their patriotism 
soon won them high honor. Cromwell's son-in-law, Charles Fleetwood, Colonel and 
Lord-Deputy of Ireland, was a Baptist ; as well as Major-General Harrison, who held 
the confidence of the Protector for so many years, and who owed his advancement 
to real merit. Lord Clarendon speaks of him as having ' an understanding capable 
of being trusted in any business,' a man who was ' looked upon as inferior to few after 
Cromwell and Ireton in the councils of the officers and in the government of the 
agitators ; and there were few men with whom Cromwell more communicated, or 
upon whom lie more depended for the conduct of any thing committed to him.' 
When the Protector dissolved the Long Parliament, an act which brought odium 
upon him, above all others he intrusted Harrison with that delicate duty, because 
of his prudence and integrity. Harrison was also appointed one of the judges to try 
Charles I. for treason to his people, and he signed the death-warrant. At the time 
of the trial he held Baptist views, but he and his wife were not baptized until 1657. 



THE HUTCHINSONS. 



169 



A contemporary chronicle informs us that his baptism occurred in the depth of 
winter, but we know not with what congregation he united. 

Harrison became estranged from Cromwell in later years, because he regarded 
him as too ambitious. Cromwell fearing his military ability and popular influence- 
threw him into prison ; and having embraced enthusiastic views concerning the 
Fifth Monarchy, which Christ was about to set up on earth, he lost caste with the 
more sober Baptists, although they sympathized with him largely in his estimate of 
the Protector. Under Charles II., Harrison was executed at Charing Cross for the 
part he had taken in the death of Charles I., but to the last he justified that act. 
His execution was a piece of the most vulgar butchery. It occurred November 13th, 
1660, and Pepys writes, that he went ' To see Major-General Harrison hanged, drawn 
and quartered : which was done, he looking as cheerful as any man could be in that 

condition. He was presently cut 
down, and his head and heart 
shown to the people ; ' and Lud- 
low adds, that his head was car- 
ried on the front of the sled upon 
which Chief-Justice Coke was 
drawn to execution. Harrison 
told his judges that he had no 
reason to be ashamed of the 
cause in which he was engaged, 
nor do his Baptist successors 
under Victoria blush for him. 

Another prominent officer 
who cherished Baptist senti- 
ments was Colonel John 
Hutchinson, who must be reck- 
' oned amongst the choicest spirits 
of his times. Lucy, his wife, 
was in every way worthy of 
him. She wrote a Memoir of 
him, which is one of the most 
charming biographies in English 
literature, for in point of learn- 
ing she had scarcely an equal amongst the women of England, and not a superior. 
Her husband was born in 1616, was the son of a baronet and received his education 
at Cambridge. He loved God, prayer, meditation and the study of the Scriptures, 
and having ample property, settled in quiet retirement after his marriage. But 
wheu the civil war broke out he threw himself into the cause of the people with 
great patriotism, and after the death of Charles became famous as the governor of 




MRS. LUCY HUTCHINSON". 



170 



WILLIAM KIFFIN. 



Nottingham and its castle. There he exerted immense influence for English liberty, 
and became a great favorite with his countrymen. He and his wife were first Pres- 
byterians, and she tells the interesting story of their conversion to Baptist principles. 
Her own mind became deeply interested in the question of infant baptism, from the 
fact that she looked for the birth of a babe ; and having examined the Scriptures 
with her husband, doubts arose in their minds on that subject. 

After the birth of their child they consulted a number of Presbyterian divines 
at their home, but concluded that the word of God gave no warrant for its baptism. 
This laid them open to much calumny and blame, but they stood firmly in their 
integrity. Lucy was the daughter of Sir Allen Apsley, governor of the Tower, 
while her husband's mother was a Byron, of which family the great poet came ; and 
their influence for patriotism, consecration to Christ and family virtue, was their 
great shield against molestation. 

At Colonel Hutchinson had been one of the judges who condemned Charles to 
death, he was imprisoned first in the 
Tower and then in Sandown Castle, 
where he died in Christian triumph 
in 16M. He was eloquent, fearless 
and powerful in the House of Com- 
mons, and so firm a defender of relig- 
ious liberty, that Fox, the founder of 
the Friends, found him his chief pro- 
tector when a prisoner at Nottingham. 

We have already seen that John 
Spilsbury was a man of high repute 
in the Baptist ministry in those days, 
yet not much more than this has 
come down to us concerning him. 
His name, however, is mentioned for 
the last time as standing side by 
side with that of Kiffin in the Decla- 
ration against Yenner's Rebellion, 
1662. His colleagues now best known 
to us are Kiffin and Knollys. 

William Kiffin was born in 1616, and lost both his parents in the Plague 
when but nine years old. William but just escaped death, having nine plague- 
boils on his body. At thirteen he became an apprentice to John Lilburn, 
the noted brewer, but at fifteen he left his master, and wandering about the 
streets of London in a melancholy manner, he passed with the crowd into St. 
Antholms's Church, where Mr. Foxley preached on the Fifth Commandment. He 
thought the preacher knew his case, so exactly did he describe his duty to his master, 




EIFFIN'S GREAT INFLUENCE. 17 1 

and he quietly returned home. After that, he heard jSTorton, the Puritan, preach 
from ' There is no peace to the wicked,' and was deeply stirred, but on hearing 
Davenport, in Coleman Street, from ' The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth 
us from all sin,' he says : ' I found my fears to vanish, and my heart filled with love 
to Jesus.' After the manner of Bunyan he alternated for months between hope and 
fear, temptation and triumph, until he joined the Church of which Lathrop was 
pastor. After enduring much persecution for holding religious meetings in South- 
wark, and being imprisoned, in 1643, he went to Holland for a time, and made a 
considerable sum of money in business before he returned. He went to Holland 
again in 1645, and returned worth several thousand pounds, on which he entered the 
shipping business, meanwhile preaching the Gospel without charge. 

The government made him an assessor of taxes for Middlesex, and he reached 
great influence in the community, although he had become a Baptist in 1638. 
When the controversy arose in Spilsbuiy's Church on the propriety of admitting 
unimmersed persons to preach, he established the Devonshire Square Church, 1610, 
and became its pastor. Soon after he was arrested and committed to prison. On a 
Sunday afternoon between sixty and seventy Baptists were met for worship, when 
six of them were arrested, brought before Parliament, admonished and discharged, 
and on the next Sunday four peers attended their worship, one of them probably 
being Lord Brooke, who favored dissenters. It is quite likely that this led Featley 
to challenge them to a disputation before Sir John Lenthal, the justice who brought 
them before the lords, and who called Featley's book, 'Kiffin's Coffin.' Featley 
and Edwards, the author of ' Gangrsena,' assailed him bitterly. Kiffin's wealth 
exposed him to wanton persecution, in which his foes expected fines or bribes. In 
1655 he was brought before the lord mayor at Guildhall, charged with preaching 
' that the baptism of infants is unlawful,' and Monk afterward annoyed him greatly, 
by sending him to the guard at St. Paul's. His life was long, for he served the 
Devonshire Square Church over half a century ; which spread through the reign of 
five monarchs, James I., the two Charles, James II. and "William III., besides the 
Protectorate of the two Cromwells. And it was full of trouble, for he was charged 
again and again with almost every conceivable plot against the government. Yet 
nothing was ever proved against him ; and in 1701, he died at the age of 86, also 
full of honors. In sagacity, manners, godliness, labors and wisdom, he ranked as the 
leader of his denomination. Thurlow, Strype, Burnet and many others have 
honored his name with a high place in history, and Macaulay says of him : ' Great 
as was the authority of Bunyan with the Baptists, William Kiffin's was greater still.' 
The same may be said to-day of his molding influence upon American Baptists 
more than a century and two thirds after his death. Kiffin was the great champion 
of the Baptists in his day. Robert Pool, one of the sharpest Presbyterian contro- 
versialists of that period, made a savage attack upon the Baptists, and Kiffin came 
to their rescue in his reply, London, 1615. Pool demanded : 



172 KIFFIN AND POOL. 

By what Scripture warrant Baptists separated from congregations where the 
Word and Sacraments were truly dispensed. Kiffin denied that they were so dis- 
pensed in the congregations from which they separated, otherwise they would be 
guilty of schism ; then demanded : ' What Gospel institution have you for the bap- 
tizing of children, which was a pure invention of men and not an institution of 
Jesus Christ ? When you have dispensed the word and power of Christ for the cut- 
ting off all drunkards, fornicators, covetous, swearers, liars, and all abominable and 
filthy persons, and stand together in the faith, a pure lump of believers, gathered and 
united according to the institution of Christ; we, I hope, shall join with you in the 
same congregation and fellowship, and nothing shall separate us but death.' Pool 
asked on what Scripture authority they separated from other Reformers and framed 
new congregations of their own ? Kiffin replied : That Baptist churches existed 
before episcopacy, but Pool had withdrawn from Reformed Episcopacy. ' Where — 
as you tell us of a great work of reformation, we entreat you to show us wherein the 
greatness of it doth consist, for as yet we see no greatness unless it be in the vast 
expense of money and time. For what great thing is it to change Episcopacy into 
Presbytery, and a Book of Common Prayer into a Directory, and to exalt men from 
livings of £100 a year to places of £400 per annum ? But where have they yet 
framed their State Church according to the pattern of Christ and his Apostles?' 
And when Pool pressed his point : On what Scripture ground the Baptists vindicated 
themselves from the sin of schism in defection from the Reformed Churches? 
Kiffin gave this home-thrust : The Presbyterians held that the baptism and ordina- 
tion of Rome were valid, and that she was right in exacting tithes and state-pay, and 
yet held themselves guiltless of schism in leaving Rome. But when they shall 
return, 'as dutiful sons to their mother, we will return to you or hold ourselves 
bound to show just grounds to the contrary.' 

At this time the Baptists of England generally distinguished themselves from 
the Pedobaptists as those of ' the baptized wayf because they held that sprinkled 
folk were not baptized at all. But those of this ' way ' divided on the subject of 
communion, part of them being open communion, led by Bunyan, Jessey and others, 
while the great majority of them were strict in their communion. Kiffin led this 
wing of ' the baptized way,' being followed by Denny, Thomas Paul, Henry 
D'Anvers and others. The controversy was hot, and in his 'Right to Church Com- 
munion,' Kiffin says in reply to Bunyan : 

' If unbaptized persons may be admitted to all church privileges, does not such 
a practice plainly suppose that it [baptism] is unnecessary ? For to what purpose is 
it to be baptized, may one reason with himself, if he may enjoy all church privileges 
without it ? The Baptists, if once such a belief prevails, would be easily tempted to 
lay aside that reproached practice, which envious men have unjustly derided and 
aspersed, of being dipt, that is, baptized, and challenge their church communion by 
virtue of their faith only. And such as baptized infants would be satisfied to dis- 
continue the practice when once they are persuaded that their children may be reg- 






HANSERD KNOLLYS. 173 

ular church members without it, for if it be superfluous, discreet and thrifty people 
would willingly be rid of the trouble of christening-feasts, as they call them, and all 
the appurtenances thereto belonging. So that in a shore time we should have 
neither old nor young baptized, and by consequence, be in a like condition to lose 
one of the sacraments, which would easily make way for the loss of the other, both 
having an equal sanction in Scripture. And the arguments that disarmed the one 
would destroy the other, and consequently all ordinances, and modes of worship, and 
lastly religion itself.' 

No morsel of reasoning in the English language has ever disposed of the 
essence of the -Communion question so fully as this; and if his proposition had been 
intended as a prophecy concerning Bunyan's Church itself, it could not have been 
more strictly fulfilled to the letter, in that it now discards baptism entirely as 
necessary to the right of church fellowship. 

Hansekd Knollys was born in Lincolnshire, 1598, was educated at Cambridge 
and ordained in the Church of England by the Bishop of Peterborough. He was a 
thorough scholar, and published many works, amongst which were grammars of the 
Greek, Latin and Hebrew languages. After holding a living at Humberstone, in 
Leicestershire, for three years, he resigned it on account of objections affecting the 
principles and practices of the Established Church. 

In 1638 he left England to escape persecution, and arrived in New England, 
becoming pastor of a Church in Dover, then known as Piscataqua, New Hampshire. 
He returned to England in 1641, and became a very popular preacher in the various 
Churches of London. But one day, preaching in Bow Church, Cheapside, he spoke 
against infant baptism, which gave such offense that he was thrown into prison. On 
his release he went into Suffolk, where he was mobbed as an ' Anabaptist,' and after 
being stoned was sent to London on a warrant to answer to Parliament. Last of all 
he established a Baptist Church, meeting in Great St. Helen's, London, where he 
seldom preached to less than a thousand people. There, says Wilson, he gave great 
offense to his Presbyterian brethren, ' and the landlord was prevailed upon to warn 
him out of the place.' After this he preached to large congregations in Finsbury 
Fields, till he was ' summoned before a committee of divines in the Queen's Court, 
Westminster.' He had written a letter on the intolerance of the Presbyterian 
divines in London, to a friend in Norwich, which found its way to London and 
appeared against him. Again and again he was forbidden to preach, and as often 
he disregarded the charge and was pursued or imprisoned. At times he fled to 
Wales, Holland and Germany, to escape his foes. But his life was spared to the 
ripe age of ninety-three, and he preached the word in all parts of the kingdom ; on 
Sundays generally delivering three or four sermons, and as many during the week, 
for a period of forty years. When in prison he had to content himself with one a 
day. Because of his great meekness and learning he won many distinguished per- 
sons to Baptist views. Amongst these was Dr. De Veil, a foreign divine, of the 
Gallican Church, and professor of divinity in the University of Anjou. On abjur- 



174 JOHN TOMBES. 

ing Rome he fled to Holland first and then to London, where he became intimate 
with Bishops Stillingfleet, Compton Lloyd, Tillotson, Sharp and Patrick. "While 
passing his Minor Prophets, Solomon's Song, Matthew and Mark, through the press, 
he found some Baptist writings in the library of Compton, the Bishop of London, 
the examination of which led him to seek the counsel of Knollys, and he united 
with the Baptists, to the great shock of the bishops, all except Tillotson, who had 
been brought up a Baptist himself and knew how to value men of convictions. 
Knollys also immersed that great Oriental scholar, Henry Jessey, who spent his life 
upon a new translation of the Bible, a translation which, though not completed, was 
of great value to other scholars. 

Those mentioned above were all Calvinistic Baptists, who were in a minority 
in and about London, but the General Baptists had men of equal piety, learning, 
and force of character amongst them. One of these was John Tombes, educated 
at Oxford, where he became a lecturer at the age of twenty-one. Leaving the 
university, he became famous as a Puritan preacher ; and being satisfied at Oxford 
that infant baptism was an invention of men, his convictions were deepened at Bristol. 
In 1643 he went to London to consult the most famous of the Presbyterian divines 
assembled there ; they rehearsed to him their stock arguments, and rejecting them 
as hollow, he was baptized upon a confession of Christ and became a Baptist pastor 
at Bewdly, near Kidderminster. He had severe controversies with Baxter and 
others on Baptist positions, and was pronounced by Baxter ' the most learned 
writer against infant baptism.' He wrote also more than a score of volumes on 
other subjects. Although a Baptist, such was his scholarship and intellectual 
power that in 1653 Parliament appointed him one of the ' triers,' or commissioners, 
to examine and approve those who were to exercise the public ministry in the 
national Church. After the Restoration he left the ministry and conformed to 
the Church as a lay member, claiming the right to do so without altering his 
opinions, and that after he had kept poor Baxter's hands so full for many years. 

Henry Denne was educated at Cambridge, and became a minister in the 
Established Church, about the year 1630. He was a stout Puritan, but his con- 
victions led him to unite with the Baptists, and he was immersed into the 
fellowship of the Bell Alley Church, London, by Mr. Lamb, in 1643, and entered 
the Baptist ministry at once. He attained great fame as a disputant and as a ' very 
affectionate' preacher. He not only met Dr. Gunning in debate, but answered 
Featley's ridiculous book. Persecution followed him everywhere, and he suffered 
much for Christ, but planted many Churches, chiefly in the eastern counties. He 
was heroic in following his convictions of duty wherever they led him, and withal 
lie entered Cromwell's army in obedience to the demands of his patriotism. 
There he served as a ' cornet,' or cavalry officer, meanwhile preaching to the 
soldiers ; but mutinied with the twelve regiments in Oxfordshire, who demanded 
a free government, after the death of Charles. Some of his companions were 



HENRY JESSEY. 



17S 





HENRY JESSEY. 



punished with death, but he was pardoned. He wept bitterly when his life was 
spared, and afterward gave a history of the whole transaction. His death soon 
followed the Restoration and his memory was greatly honored. 

Hekkt Jessey was a famous Baptist of those times. He was a Torkshirernan, 

educated at Cambridge and ordained 
in the Established Church in 1627. 
He refused to conform to all the 
Romish notions which Laud set up as 
the standard of clerical orthodoxy. 
In 1637 he became pastor of the Inde- 
pendent Church which Henry Jacob 
had formed in 1616. From time to 
time members of this Church adopted 
Baptist views and separated from it, as 
we have seen in the cases of Spilsbury 
and Kiffin. These events turned his at- 
tention to the subject of infant baptism, 
which, after consultation with many 
leading Pedobaptist divines, he coiv 
cluded was unscriptural, and in 1645 he 
was immersed by Knollys. He differed 
with the Confession of the Eight Churches on the question of communion, and 
published the first work known in England in favor of open communion. He was 
endowed with noble abilities and enriched with high Christian graces. After the 
Restoration he endured great persecution with holy fortitude, and died in prison in 
1663. A letter of his informs us that one of the London Churches, meeting in 
Great Allhallows, received two hundred members by baptism between the years 
1650-53 ; a fact which illustrates the rapid increase of Baptists not only in London 
and Kent, but also in the middle and northern counties. 

The Fifth Monarchy men waxed bold and numerous during the latter years 
of the Commonwealth. It was but natural that the somber and fiery religious 
spirit ot those times should betray ill-balanced intellects into fanaticism. ISTew 
sects sprang up in a day and disappeard as quickly, and amongst them the Fifth 
Monarchy men. They were Premilienarians, with this modification of the chili- 
astic views which have been held by some in various ages, namely : they believed 
that Christ was about to come and begin his millennial reign at once, and that they 
were divinely commissioned to set up his kingdom on earth. A few of them were 
disposed to effect this revolution by the sword, but the greater part favored peace- 
ful measures. A meeting was called in London for debate concerning ' the laws, 
subjects, extent, rise, time, place, offices and officers of the Fifth Monarchy ; ' but 
probably the authorities suppressed it as mischievous, for it does not appear that it 



176 THE FIFTH MONARCHY. TROUBLES. 

was held. The proposal to make it ' public ' and to hear ' debate ' indicate the 
pacific ideas of the leaders, and General Harrison was reported to be in sympathy 
with the movement, with a few other Baptists. But the Calvinistic Baptists were 
prompt to protest against the measure ; -they, with their brethren, the General 
Baptists, believing that the Prince of Peace will establish his kingdom without the 
sword. Just as the Protector's life was drawing to a close these misguided men 
chose Thomas Venner as their leader. He was a wine-cooper, and created an in- 
surrection. He became nearly insane at the thought of monarchy restored in 
Charles II., and determined to destroy royalty as opposed to Christ. He rallied 
followers and armed them, adopted a banner on which was the lion of the tribe of 
Judah, with the motto, ' Who shall rouse him up ? ' and then proclaimed Jesus as 
King. The military were called out, and in a fight these men were slain or taken 
prisoners ; Venner and fourteen others being hanged and quartered for treason. 
The fact that Venner and fifty men issued out of the , Baptist meeting-house in 
Coleman Street has associated this mad proceeding with the General Baptists as a 
people, but very unjustly. Venner was not a Baptist ; on the contrary, he threat- 
ened them that if he succeeded he would show them whether infant baptism were 
in the Bible, possibly as they had found it there so often, by the light of fagots. 
Mr. Lamb, the pastor of the Coleman Street Church, at once united with the 
London Baptists in issuing a strong appeal to the world, showing that they were 
bound in conscience to render to Csesar his right y and had no sympathy with Ven- 
ner's doings. This is clear enough from the fact that only fifty men issued out of 
the meeting-house with Venner, and yet Lamb's Church was 'by far the largest 5 
Baptist Church in London. The British public believed the disclaimer of the 
Baptists, but not so the perfidious monarch ; urged by his minister, Edward Hyde, 
Lord Clarendon, who hated the Baptists for their espousal of the Parliamentary 
cause, he made this insignificant piece of rant the pretext for a series of abuses upon 
the Independents, Quakers and Baptists, which will disgrace his name for ever. 
While some few Baptists believed in the doctrine of Christ's millennial reign, there 
is no satisfactory evidence that one of the fifty men were of their number, or that a 
single Baptist took part in the plot. Harrison was committed to the Tower for 
supposed complicity with it, but Carlyle, who studied this period with great 
thoroughness, gives it as his opinion that ' Harrison (was) hardly connected with the 
thing except as a well-wisher.' Froude sees the matter in much the same light, 
for he says : ' With the Fifth Monarchy men abroad, every chapel, except those of 
the Baptists, would have been a magazine of explosives. The Baptists and Quakers 
might have been trusted to discourage violence, but it was impossible to dis- 
tinguish among the various sects.' 6 



CHAPTER IV. 



BRITISH BAPTISTS.— JOHN BUNYAN. 

WE must now look at the Baptists after the Restoration, the most noted of 
whom is John Bunyan. He was born at Elstow, near Bedford, in 1628, 
the famous year in which Charles I. was forced to yield the Petition of Bight. 

His education was next to noth- 
ing, yet he was favored above 
the boys of his village, for he 
attended the grammar school 
founded by Sir William Harper 
at Bedford ; how long is not 
known, but at the best his edu- 
cational attainments were quite 
scanty. Nature had given him 
a warm, light, frolicsome heart, 
which held him ready for any 
sort of glee and mischief, and 
under reversed circumstances 
subjected him not only to the 
pensive, but the desponding. 
He early feared God and longed 
to love him, but his giddiness and 
love of fun drew him into sin, 
until he became addicted to wrong-doing, principally lying and swearing. Because 
his father and himself were tinkers, and Gipsies in England have been tinkers from 
time immemorial, he was long supposed to be of this alien blood. But the records 
of his family are now traceable to about A. D. 1200, and the name itself, as then 
known, Buignon, indicates that the family was of Norman origin. This great 
descendant of that house was a man of intense feeling on all subjects. The religion 
of his times was of the most earnest nature, emotional, deep, almost fanatical, and 
when Bunyan's heart began to yearn after the Lord Jesus, his whole nature was 
inflamed. If we should take his own version of his case literally, he would compel us 
to believe that he was a sad scamp in youth and a desperate villain in early manhood. 
He tells us, however, that he was never drunk nor unchaste, and certainly he was 
never a thief nor a highwayman. He broke the Sabbath, loved dancing, ball- 




JOHN BUNYAN. 



178 HIS CONVICTIONS FOB SIN. 

playing, bell-ringing and rough sports generally, and for these, with tying and pro- 
fanity, his passionate self-accusings threw him into a deep and terrible sense of 
guilt. His agonies and conflicts continued for months ; he dreamed frightful 
dreams and saw alarming day visions, heard warning voices and read his doom 
written in letters of fire. Meanwhile, he was a soldier in the civil war, and at its 
close married a poor, but godly, orphan girl. Froude says that his marriage speaks 
much for his character, for ' had he been a dissolute, idle scamp, it is unlikely that 
a respectable woman would have become his wife when he was a mere boy.' At 
any rate, his soul-conflict not only continued, but deepened, until his sufferings 
became unbearable, and he concluded that he was too wicked to be saved and must 
be lost. One day, when walking alone in the country, a flood of light broke upon 
his mind with these words : ' He hath made peace through the blood of his cross ; ' 
when, he says: 'I saw that the justice of God and my sinful soul could embrace and 
kiss each other. I was ready to swoon, not with grief and trouble, but with solid 
joy and peace.' Soon after this, 1653, Mr. Gifford immersed him in the river 
Ouse, when he became a member of the Baptist Church at Bedford, as we shall see 
more fully in the next chapters ; and in 1655 he entered the ministry '>f the 
Gospel. 

Lord Macaulay speaks thus : ' The history of Bunyan is the history of a most 
excitable mind in an age of excitement.' While this consideration does not throw 
light upon the source and sweep of Bunyan's genius, it may and does suggest a 
weighty reason why it took the hue and channel that it selected for its expression, 
both in his personal history and in the sixty works of his pen. The sixty years of 
his natural life ran through a long list of the most remarkable events in English 
annals. In his day the High Commission and the Star Chamber brought before his 
mind the most vital question of human rights. This Court was empowered on 
mere suspicion to administer an oath, by which the prisoner was bound to reveal 
his inward thoughts, opinions and convictions, and thus accuse himself on pain of 
death. Every day filled Bunyan's ears with some new, romantic and blood-stirring 
event. He held his breath and turned pale when he heard that Charles lost not 
only his crown but his head as a traitor, when Cromwell drew the sword for British 
liberties and progress, when Cavaliers and Roundheads flew in every direction, 
when the Commonwealth was nourished with the blood of his brethren, and when 
Naseby, Edgewood and Marston Moor decreed, that no irresponsible tyrant should 
ever mount the throne again. He was familiar with the mad plots of Oates, 
Dangerfield and Tenner, with the Conventicle Act, the ejection of two thousand 
men of God from their pulpits in a day, the faithlessness of the second Charles, the 
hypocrisies of James, the butcheries of Claverhouse, the infamous mockery of jus- 
tice in Jeffreys, and the fall of the perfidious Stuarts. The smoke of burning mar- 
tyrs filled the air over his head, and he saw the blows for freedom which were 
struck by Hampden and Pym, Sidney and Russell. Howard, the great philan- 



HIS IMPRISONMENT. 1 79 

thropist, a hundred years afterward, walked the same streets and country roads 
that Bunyan trod, and, it is said, caught his spirit of prison reform largely from the 
' Den ' in which Bunyan had lain. The great singers of his day were Herbert and 
Milton, Dryden and Shakespeare. And the mighty preachers were Howe and 
Henry, Charnock and Owen, Tillotson and South, Sherlock and Stillingfleet. 
Bunyan's observation was keen and extensive ; he lived in the very heart of 
England, was an actor in some of its most exciting scenes, and it is impossible but 
that the spirit of the times moved him at every step. In his day, English literature 
had become thoroughly imbued with all the elements of poetry and fiction ; nay, 
even of romance. These had come down through high Italian authorship. Not 
only had the colloquial English descended through "Wyckliff, and its higher liter- 
ature through Chaucer, but they had been largely blended in the Bible, with which 
Bunyan was most familiar; so that simple, idiomatic Saxon English was prepared 
to his hand ; being full of image and awe, of wonder and grandeur, which he could 
express to the popular mind in a very racy style. Unconsciously he felt the force of 
his mother-tongue ; it stimulated his genius, became the groundwork of his thought 
and the model of his utterance; a choice which places him side by side with Shakes' 
peare and the English Bible, as one of the great conservators of our powerful 
language. 

In a burst of unreasoning loyalty the English people, in 1660, placed Charles II. 
on the throne, without exacting proper guarantees for that liberty which they had 
bought with their own blood. He had given his word on honor to protect all his 
subjects in their religious freedom ; and then, like a true Stuart, he sold that honor 
to his lust of power. Hardly was he seated on the throne when Vernier's petty 
insurrection furnished a pretext for vengeance upon all his opponents, and espe- 
cially those in the dissenting sects, no matter how much they proved their loyalty. 
Amongst the first victims of his tyranny we find Bunyan, charged with 'devilishly' 
and ' perniciously ' abstaining from going to church, ' as a common upholder of 
meetings contrary to the laws of the king,' and with ' teaching men to worship con- 
trary to law.' He was sentenced to Bedford jail for three months, and at the end 
of that time to be transported if he refused to conform. But his judges kept him 
in prison for six years : and when released he instantly began to preach again, 
whereupon he was imprisoned for another six years. Being released still again, he 
began to preach at once, and was arrested for the third time, but was detained only 
a few months. His judges were harsh with him, but his real oppressors for these 
twelve weary years were the king and Parliament, who made it a crime for any one 
to preach but a priest of the Church of England. It was long supposed that he was 
imprisoned mostly in the town jail of Bedford, on the bridge over the river Ouse, 
but it is now clear that his long imprisonment was in the county jail, where his 
anonymous biographer of 1700 says, that he heard him preach to sixty dissenters 
and three ministers. There is good ground for believing, however, that he passed 



ISO 



HIS 'PILGRIM.' 



a considerable period in the jail on the bridge, and that he wrote his ' Pilgrim's 
Progress ' there. 

While we are obliged to reprehend the base injustice which kept this grand 
preacher pining in a prison, however leniently treated, the fact is forced upon us, 
that the wrath of man was made to praise God; for had not his zealous servant 
been compelled to this solitude, we should not have had that masterpiece of 
literature. His ' Holy War' and other productions would have brought down to us 
a literary name for him of no mean order, but his 'Pilgrim' is a book for all people 
and all time. Bunyan's great power is in allegory and this form of it is unique, 
because its facts and dress are not fantastic, but are inherent in man's common sense 
and moral nature. His ' Pilgrim ' is full of truth — this he drew from the Bible ; of 




THE PRISON ON BEDFORD BRIDGE. 



history, which he took from Foxe's ' Book of Martyrs ; ' of terse English, which he 
learned from Spenser and Chaucer ; of human nature, which he borrowed from 
himself and his circumstances ; of hallowed conviction, which he caught from the 
Holy Spirit ; and of uncrippled boldness, which was inspired by his love of soul- 
liberty. In earlier times some treated this great book with sneer and scorn, but in 
later days the first critics have vied with each other to exhaust upon it the language 
of eulogy. Dr. Johnson, Coleridge, Arnold, Macaulay and Fronde have pronounced 
it equally fit for the plowman and the philosopher, the peer and the peasant ; and 
the Queen of England thinks ' Christian,' its great character, a pattern for her 
grandchildren to copy in the palace. The glorious truth which made the heart of 
Bunyan beat quicker under the tinker's doublet has since given ' heart's-ease ' to 
many a throbbing bosom which heaves under the purple. And the humbler walks 



ITS WIDE INFLUENCE. 181 

of life, from old age to childhood, have made it next to the Bible, the story of their 
lives. In all souls it has created visions, interpreted dreams, and awakened ' the joy 
that made me write.' The eight editions through which it passed in thirty years 
gave but small promise of the progress of its pilgrimage since. No book has been 
rendered into so many languages, except the word of God itself. To many who 
are now 'high in bliss upon the hills of God,' it first set 'the joy -bells ringing in the 
city of habitation.' The pauper and beggar of London have read it in thorough- 
fares and squares, and threaded their way by its guidance through Vanity Fair. 
The Italian has crouched beneath the shade of the Vatican, and trembled to look up 
lest he should see Giant Pope. The dusky Burman has taken it into the deep jun- 
gle, to show him stepping-stones through the Slough of Despond. The darker 
African has stolen with it into a by-path of the wild woods, and, under the palm- 
tree, has dreamed of the white man's heaven. The son of Abraham and the 
daughter of Jerusalem have read its pages to the sigh of the wind amongst the 
olives and the ripple of Kedron ; and the Hindoo, with Bunyan in his hand, has 
resolved on courage when he crossed the 'deep river;' for angels, such as do not 
wait upon the banks of his sacred Ganges, beckon him over. 

No wonder that when Mr. Brown, the minister of Bunyan's meeting, lately 
visited Scotland, a worthy Highlander was startled when introduced to him as 
' Bunyan's successor.' Starting back and measuring him from head to foot, he ex- 
claimed : 'Eh, mon! but ye'll ha hard work to fill his shoonf Dean Stanley 
says : 'When in early life I lighted on the passage where the Pilgrim is taken into 
the House Beautiful to see " the pedigree of the Ancient of Days, and the varieties 
and histories of that place, both ancient and modern," I determined that if "ever 
the time should arrive when I should become a professor of ecclesiastical history, 
these should become the opening words in which I would describe the treasures of 
that magnificent store-house. Accordingly, when, many years after, it so fell out, I 
could find no better mode of beginning my course at Oxford than by redeeming 
that early pledge ; and when the course came to an end, and I wished to draw a 
picture of the prospects still reserved for the future of Christendom, I found again 
that the best words I could supply were those in which, on leaving the Beautiful 
House, Christian was shown in the distance the view of the Delectable Mountains, 
" which they said, would add to his comfort because they were nearer to the desired 
haven." This was a worthy and heart-felt tribute from Westminster to the dream- 
ing tinker whose effigy now adorns the House of Commons, side by side with 
those of orators, heroes and statesmen in honor of the man, who, though he 
'devilishly ' abstained from attending the church 'contrary to the laws of the king/ 
has preached in all pulpits and palaces ever since. 

After Bunyan's final release in 1672, he became pastor of the Church at Bed- 
ford, and so threw his life into Gospel labor, that his fame as a preacher increased 
until he was, perhaps, the most famous minister of his day. The few sermons 



182 



BUNYAN'S PREACHING. 



which have come down to us, show that he spoke as he wrote. As in his Pilgrim 
he embodies more of the Bible than does Milton in his Paradise Lost, so in his 
sermons we find more true human nature than in Shakespeare. His sentences burn 
with sacred touches of divine experience and move us with sympathy, so that they 
must have melted his hearers to tears. They also abound in personification and 
figure, touched by a little quiet but keen satire, and are rich in reality, tenderness 
and life. So great was his success as a preacher, that the largest buildings to 
which he had access in London would not contain the multitudes who flocked to 
hear him. One of his early biographers says : ' I have seen about twelve hundred 
at a morning lecture, by seven o'clock, on a working day, in the dark winter time. 




ZOAR STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK. 

I have computed about three thousand that came to hear him one Lord's-day at 
the town's-end meeting-house, so that half were fain to go back again for want of 
room, and then himself was fain, at a back door, to be pulled almost over people to 
get up stairs to his pulpit.' John Owen heard him preach, probably at Zoar Chapel, 
and when King Charles expressed wonder that a man of his learning could bear to 
listen to the 'prate' of a tinker, he answered, that he would gladly give all his 
learning for this tinker's power. In the doctrinal controversies of the times, he gave 
and took many a hard blow, but his writings leave slight traces of personal bitter- 
ness toward his opponents. Indeed, hard feeling seems to have been a stranger 
both in him and his house. His wife was gentle to a proverb. When he was in 
prison she went to London to pray for his release, and induced a peer of the realm 
to present a petition to the House of Lords in his behalf; so the judges were 
directed to look into the matter afresh. She, therefore, appeared before Sir 



BUNYAN'S TENDERNESS. 183 

Matthew Hale, Chester and Twisden. With all the simplicity of a woman's love 
she told her artless story. She said that her husband ' was a peaceable person,' and 
wished to support his family. They had four helpless children, one of them blind, 
and while he was in prison they must live on charity. Hale treated her kindly, 
Twisden harshly, and demanded whether he would leave off preaching if released. 
In child-like honesty she replied, that ' he dare not leave off preaching so long as he 
could speak.' Her request was denied and she left the Court in tears, not so much, 
she said, 'because they were so hard-hearted against me and my husband, but to 
think what a sad account such poor creatures would have to give at the coming of 
the Lord.' Jesus wept because Jerusalem stoned the prophets, and Bunyan's wife 
was much like him. But, this giant in genius was just as tender-hearted as his wife. 
Where do we find such pathos in any passage as this, which he wrote in prison : 

' The parting with my wife and poor children hath often been to me in this 
place as the pulling off my flesh from my bones ; and that not only because I am 
too, too fond of those great mercies, but also because I should have often brought 
to my mind the hardships, miseries and wants my poor family was like to meet 
with should I be taken from them ; especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer 
my heart than all I had besides. Poor child, thought I, what sorrow art thou like 
to have for thy portion in this world ! Thou must be beaten, suffer hunger, cold, 
nakedness and a thousand calamities, though I cannot now endure the wind should 
blow on thee. But yet, thought I, I must venture all with God, though it goeth to 
the quick to leave you. I was as a man who was pulling down his house upon the 
head of his wife and children. Yet, thought I, I must do it, I must do it.' 

So loving was Bunyan's disposition, that he kept the heart of the jailer soft all 
the time. He not only allowed him to visit his church frequently, unattended, and 
to preach the Gospel, too ; but his blind Mary constantly visited him, with such 
little gifts as she could gather for his solace. She had great concern for him, lest 
he sorrowed beyond all hope, and often when parting with him, would put her 
delicate fingers to his eyes and cheeks, to feel if the tears flowed that she might 
kiss them away. His blind babe died and left him in prison ; with O, how many 
fatherly benedictions upon her sweet memory. It was meet that little, blind Mary 
Bunyan should enter the Celestial Gate before the hero of the 'den,' a true 'shining 
one' to watch and wait for his coming. Nor did she wait long. In 1688 he went 
to London to reconcile an alienated father and son, and succeeded. But on the 
journey a violent storm overtook him, and he contracted a fatal illness which after 
ten days took him to Jesus, the King in his beauty, and to blind Mary, when he 
first saw her sweet eyes blaze with light. She raised not a hand to his cheek then, 
as was her old wont in Bedford, for God had wiped away all tears from his eyes ; 
and since then the old and young pilgrim have dwelt together in the golden city. 

Bunyan died just as the day dawned on England when the second great Be vo- 
lution was to make her a free nation, in which Baptists could breathe freely. Mr. 
Froude couples him thus with them, in his biography of Bunyan : ' In the language 
of the time, he became convinced of sin and joined the Baptists, the most thorough- 



184 



ENGLAND HONORS HIM. 




bunyan's tomb. 



going and consistent of all the Protestant sects. If the sacramemt of baptism is not 
a magical form, but is a personal act in which the baptized person devotes himself 
to Christ's service, to baptize children at any age when they cannot understand what 
they are doing may seem irrational and even impious.' x Bunyan's ashes rest in 
Bunhill Fields, marked by a neat tomb, 
bearing simply his name. But in 1874 the 
Duke of Bedford, a descendant of Lord 
William Russell, the martyr to liberty, pre- 
sented a most costly and beautiful statue 
to that city, in Bunyan's memory. The 
10th of June in that year was one of 
the greatest days that Bedford ever knew. 
The corporation, with many thousands of 
distinguished persons from all parts of 
the kingdom, assembled on St. Peter's 
green, to unveil this work of art. This was done by Lady Augusta Stanley, 
sister of the Earl of Elgin and wife of the Dean of "Westminster. Although 
Bunyan's back is still turned toward St. Peter's Church, the bells rang a merry peal, 
and immense crowds assembled in the Corn Exchange and on the green, to listen to 
addresses from the Mayor, Dean Stanley, Earl Cowper and many others of great 
note ; and a banquet at the Swan Hotel crowned the day. As was fitting, 4,000 
Sunday-school children of Bedford and Elstow consumed a ton and a quarter of cake 
and six hundred gallons of tea, in honor of the occasion ; and with bands of music 
made a pilgrimage to Elstow, the birthplace of their enchanting dreamer ; and the 
press of the United Kingdom that day called Bunyan blessed. The statue is of 
bronze, cast of cannon and bells brought from China, weighing two and a half tons. 
The figure of Bunyan is taken from a painting by Sadler, and is ten feet high. The 
idea which Boehm, the sculptor, has striven to give, is expressed in an inscription 
on the pedestal, and is taken from the picture of 'a very grave person.' which 
Bunyan saw hung in the Interpreter's house : 

' It had eyes uplifted to heaven ; 
The best of books in his hand ; 
The law of truth was written 
Upon his lips. . . . 
It stood as if it pleaded 
With men.' 

A broken fetter at his feet represents his long imprisonment, and on a tablet 
beneath is & facsimile of his autograph in his will, 'John Bunyan.' Three sides 
of the pedestal contain scenes from ' Pilgrim's Progress,' in bold relief : Evangelist 
pointing Christian to the wicket gate ; Christian's fight with Apollyon ; Pilgrim 
released from his load and the three shining ones pointing him to the Celestial 



THE BEDFORD MONUMENT. 



18S 



City. The monument stands where four roads meet, but, like its original, it only 
faces one way and is full of repose, the ideal of that lofty spirituality, which claims 

the right to look to heaven 
without a license from the es- 
tablished Church. Bunyan's 
figure is thus described : ' He 
was tall of stature, strong- 
browed, with sparkling eyes, 
wearing his hah on his upper 
lip after the old British fash- 
ion ; his hair reddish, bat in his 
latter da} T s sprinkled with gray ; 
his nose well cut, his mouth 
moderately large, his forehead 
something high, and his habit 
always plain and modest.' 

That Bunyan was an open 
communion Baptist has never 
been seriously doubted until 
the recent publication of his 
life, by Rev. John Brown, 
A.M., minister of the Bun- 
yan meeting at Bedford. This 
work throws new light on many 
points in his history and is 
ably written, but because of 
certain parish records which it 
publishes, and which seem to 
imply that Bunyan's children 
were christened, after he had 
united with the Bedford Church, 
it is needful to examine that subject candidly and carefully. "Whether Mr. Brown 
intended to convey this impression or not, his book is well adapted to place Bun- 
yan's practice in direct contradiction with many of his own utterances, and to 
render his conduct irreconcilable with the universal testimony of history as to his 
union with the Baptists. Yet Mr. Brown carefully avoids saying that he was not 
a Baptist. He quotes Bunyan's words : ' Do not have too much company with some 
Anabaptists, though I go under that name myself J and then adds : ' This is plain 
enough. The only difficulty is how to reconcile his practice with his declaration ; 
for he seems to have had three of his children baptized at church in their infancy, 
as we gather from the register of the parishes of Elstow and St. Cuthbert's.' 




BUNYAN'S MONUMENT. 



186 OPPOSES INFANT BAPTISM. 

It has never been doubted that Bunyan was an open-communion Baptist. All 
his biographers accord this, and innumerable passages in his controversial and other 
writings, amounting in all to sixty volumes, show that he was of this order. The 
Dreamer himself says : ' Do not have too much company with some Anabaptists, 
though I go under that name myself.'' Even Dr. Brown, who tries to show that he 
had his children christened, although Bunyan denounced infant baptism as a ' sin,' 
has been compelled to admit, both publicly and privately, under his own name, that 
Bunyan was immersed. Hence, true history would be more indebted to his able 
pen if he had the candor to say in his Life of Bunyan what truth has obliged him 
to say elsewhere. No one has ever claimed that the sacred thinker was more than 
an open-communion Baptist, and no record has been produced to prove that he ever 
had a child christened after his conversion. Those which Mr. Brown cites to show 
that he had, say nothing about the baptism of Bunyan's child, but simply read : 
' Elizabeth, the daughter of John Bonyon, was born 14th day of April, 1654.' 
Down to A. D. 1653 Baptists, Quakers, and others who rejected infant baptism 
were subjected to every annoyance, because they refused to take their children to 
the parish Church to be christened. In 1653 Parliament came to their relief by 
passing an act which took the registration of births out of the hands of the clergy 
and put it into secular hands, so that the birth of a child could be registered without 
its christening. Cobbet, in his ' Parliamentary History,' under date of Aug. 25th, 
1653, writes : ' Great part of this month has been taken up in canvassing a bill con- 
cerning marriages and the registering thereof, and also of births and burials. This 
day it passed the House on this question, and was ordered to be printed and pub- 
lished. This extraordinary act entirely took marriages out of the hands of the 
clergy, and put them into those of the Justices of the Peace. 

John Bunyan himself had been christened when a babe in 1620. Bunyan re- 
pudiated this infant baptism in 1653, when he was immersed on his personal faith 
by Gilford. In that same year Cromwell's short Parliament came to the relief of 
Bunyan as a Baptist, giving him the right of an Englishman to have the birth of 
his child entered on the public record without violating his conscience by compell- 
ing him to have her christened, and thus to commit what was ' in our eyes,' ' the 
sin of infant baptism.' As a matter of fact, Elizabeth Bunyan was not baptized, 
nor does the Elstow Parish Register say that she was. That says that she was 
' born ' on the 14th of April, 1654, and mentions nothing concerning her baptism. 
Even Dr. Brown is obliged to confess that ' the previous year an Act of Parliament 
had been passed requiring the date of birth to be inserted in the Register instead of 
that of baptism.' This is Bunyan's second public protest against infant baptism ; 
first he repudiated his own when he became an ' Anabaptist,' and then he registered 
merely the birth of his daughter. Indeed, she could not conveniently have been 
born in her father's home, and have been taken to the parish Church to be chris- 
tened on the day of her birth, therefore, this is only what it professes to be on its 






BIRTHS, NOT CHRISTENINGS, RECORDED. 



187 



face, the record of lier ' birth ' and not of her baptism. Dr. Brown befogs the 
whole subject by lugging in an alleged Transcript Register, found in the Archdean- 
ery of Bedford, in which the copyist has introduced running headings, such as ' chris- 
tened,' etc. But the original 
record, as John Bunyan had 
it made, is at Elstow, and 
Rev. James Copner, the pres- 
ent vicar of Elstow, says, 
under date July 26th, 1886 : 
' You ask how many were 
entered on the Register as 
" borne during the years 1653 
and 1654." In the former 
year only six were entered 
as born, and in the latter 
twenty-four. The discrep- 
ancy between the original 
Register and the Transcript 
is curious? The writer re- 
quested a gentleman who is 
in the employment of Her 
Majesty to examine and com- 
pare the original and the 
copy for him. On July 29th, 
1886, he writes : ' In the 
Parish Register at Elstow 
for April 14th, 1654, I find Elizabeth Bunyan recorded as " borne," without any 
mention of her christening. In all the entries down to the year 1662 each child is 
so entered. After 1662 the word " christened " is substituted, and the word " borne " 
drops out. The Register is without headings. Only the year and date of the month 
are entered, then the entries follow to the end of the year, when the same process 
is repeated. In the archives of the Archdeanery of Bedford, I find the Transcript 
Registers, and they give Elizabeth Bunyan, daughter of John, as " christened," April 
14th, 1654. This stands along with twenty-three others, total twenty-four. From 
that date the word " borne " does not occur again. Then, as to the headings, as I 
said, the Elstow Register (the original) is without headings, and this order is con- 
tinued in the Transcripts, which for the whole ten years are not only without head- 
ings, but without signatures.' In a court of justice a copy is not allowable in the 
presence of an original entry for the purposes of evidence ; and it is not easy to see 
why Dr. Brown should bring in this so-called copy, when it positively states another 
thing from that of the original. 




bunyan's cottage and forge at elstow. 



188 



THE DREAMER WAS A BAPTIST. 



Every thing on the subject in the writings of Bunyan, and in the early history 
of his Church, shows that Bunyan was a Baptist, and, according to Copner, that his 
Church was a ' congregation of Baptists, in the town of Bedford.' Philip, Froud, 
Scott, Stebbing, Stanley, and Macaulay, with the Encyclopaedias, all claim that 
Bunyan was a Baptist, and Dr. Brown says the same in the ' British Weekly,' but 
uses the most rigid care to suppress that fact, as Bunyan's biographer, as if it would 
be horrible in the extreme to allow that truth an honest statement. It is a key to 
his whole life and character, but the Doctor would rather have the blunt tinker go 
down to posterity under the lame pretence that his ' practice ' did not harmonize 
with his own ' declaration' that he was an 'Anabaptist,' than to say frankly in his 
Life of Bunyan, that the Dreamer was a Baptist of any sort. 




'HOOT HOUSE,' AT ELSTOW. 



CHAPTER V. 



BRITISH BAPTISTS.— COMMONWEALTH AND RESTORATION. 

JOHN" MILTON", the apostle of liberty and monarch of song, demands our 
notice, because, whether he was a Baptist or not, he expounded and defended 
certaiu elementary Baptist principles as few others have done. Milton was born 
in 1608, and educated at Cambridge. He was of a serious spirit, full of purity and 

courage and very modest withal. 
This soul dwelt in a temple as 
fair as Apollo's, the picture of 
beauty and delicacy ; so fine, 
indeed, that the coarser stu- 
dents nicknamed him ' the lady 
of Christ's College.' As a lit- 
erator, he did for England what 
no man had yet done. He 
lived when all religious and 
political traditions were called 
in question, and all old insti- 
tutions were being remodeled. 
Although his early design was 
to enter the Episcopal minis- 
try, and his preparation was 
thorough, after examining the 
claims of Episcopacy, he said 
that to take orders he ' must 
subscribe slave,' and this he 
would do for no man. After 
seven years' study he took his master's degree, 1632 ; then retired for five years, 
studying the Bible, Greek and Boman writers, philosophy and literature, and 
laying plans for his great life-work. On the death of his mother, in 1638, he went 
to the Continent, intending to spend some years there. In Baris he became 
thoroughly acquainted with Grotius, and at Florence had much conversation with 
Galileo, in the Inquisition. When he heard of the disturbances in England, his 
patriotism was so stirred that he resolved to return, saying, ' I considered it dis- 




,H§L_ 

JOHN MILTON. 



190 MILTON'S WRITINGS. 

honorable to be enjoying myself at my ease in foreign lands, while my countrymen 
were striking a blow for freedom.' 

At home, he was soon drawn into the front rank as a publicist, dealing with 
every fundamental principle of the English Constitution. Twenty-five controversial 
and political works were soon issued from his pen touching great practical questions 
of statesmanship ; the rights of the people, of rulers, the freedom of the common- 
wealth, the relations of the Church to the State, of religious liberty, popular educa- 
tion, the laws of marriage and the freedom of the press. These aroused the whole 
nation as a giant from slumber. He spoke on all subjects with a deep conviction 
and an honest boldness worthy of a doctrinaire and philosophical civilian. Every 
point was presented with the clearness of a sunbeam ; all could see that the love of 
liberty dominated him like an inspiration. His principles embodied a new and 
radical order of things, and a new set of political institutions must spring there- 
from, so primal were they. In themselves they were a new creation, so to speak, 
which appealed to reason and conscience ; in a word, the embryo of a free republic. 
Mark Pattison, no indulgent critic of Milton, is compelled to admit that these 
works were 'all written on the side of liberty.' He defended religious liberty 
against the prelates, civil liberty against the crown, the liberty of the press against 
the executive, liberty of conscience against the Presbyterians, and domestic liberty 
against the tyranny of canon law. Milton's pamphlets might have been stamped 
with the motto which Seldon inscribed (in Greek) in all his books : ' Liberty before 
every thing.' In the depth of his nature he reverenced God, and used that rever- 
ence to ennoble England. While the seething excitement of his times marks his 
style, which is often rasping, even withering, and betrays that metallic spirit which 
will neither brook imposition nor cant ; yet there was a light and refreshing newness 
in his temper, which told his foes that he knew what he was talking about, whether 
they did or not, and which brushed away their impudent assumptions and abuses 
like dust. His exact calmness of thought and clearness of language made his foes 
resentful. He was a perfect master of stinging candor, and his nervous invective 
made his vehemence calm by the truth which it couched. 

The second marked period of his life brought his knowledge of the learned 
languages into great service. He honored his mother-tongue as a language of ideas, 
and his prose works will ever remain a monument to its terse greatness. But he 
wrote Latin as fluently as English, and was chosen Latin secretary to the govern- 
ment soon after the death of Charles I. This was the language of diplomacy at the 
time, and he filled this station till the reign of Charles II. His office brought him 
into daily contact with the forty-one who composed the Council of State, especially 
with the Committee for Foreign Affairs, amongst whom were Vane and Whitelock, 
Lords Denbigh and Lisle. In company with Cromwell, Fairfax and others, his 
daily task was to frame difficult dispatches to all nations, in harmony with the new 
state of things in England, to which, practically, the world was a stranger. In 



MILTON'S HUMANITY. 1 91 

April, 1655, the Duke of Savoy horrified all Europe by the fiendish atrocities which 
made the valleys of Piedmont run with blood. "When news of this savagery reached 
Protestant England she stood appalled, decreed it high time to stop such insane 
brutality, and sent Moreland to take the cut-throat of Savoy in hand. As repre- 
senting a republic, Cromwell had omitted the title of his Royal Highness in the 
dispatches sent by Moreland to the duke, who proposed to return the demand of 
England under color of affront. The sober second thought, however, aided by a 
little common sense and Cardinal Mazarin, brought the butcher to his senses. 
France was required to stop this cowardly reign of fury, rape and murder. The 
correspondence which Milton conducted on this subject with the nations of Europe 
was so just, humane and simple, that it stands an honor to humanity. Its tone is 
severely moderate, becoming a Christian republic in diplomacy ; firm, equitable, 
manly to deliciousness, and its effect is felt on the liberties of Europe to this day. 

Milton's perpetual labor in the cause of humanity cost him his eye-sight. He 
said that his physicians predicted this when he took up his pen to write against the 
tyrannies of Charles, 'yet, nothing terrified by their premonition, I did not long 
balance whether my duty should be preferred to my eyes.' In 1650 the sight of his 
left eye was gone, and by 1652 the sight of his right eye was also quenched ; so that 
at the age of forty-three he was totally blind, remaining so till his death, twenty-two 
years after. In another touching passage, which expresses his unyielding sense of 
responsibility, he says : ' The choice lay before me, between dereliction of a supreme 
duty and loss of eye-sight. In such a case I could not listen to the physician, not if 
Esculapius himself had spoken from his sanctuary ; I could but obey that inward 
monitor, I know not what, that spoke to me from heaven. I considered with myself 
that many had purchased less good with worse ill, as they who give their lives to 
reap only glory ; and I thereupon concluded to employ the little remaining eye- 
sight I was to enjoy in doing this, the greatest service to the common weal it was 
in my power to render.' 

The third period of his life drew forth his highest and holiest genius as a bard. 
From 1660 to 1674 he produced his matchless ' Paradise Lost ' and ' Paradise Re- 
gained,' and his ' Samson Agonistes.' He addressed himself to these as a prophet would 
devote himself to his holy office. Five and twenty years had been spent in the sternest 
self-culture and sacred purpose, so that he thought his epic ideal a schooling from 
God. He had conceived the first plan of his ' Paradise Lost ' under the flush and 
daring imaginations of youth, but dared not touch the work without the chaste and 
ripe judgment of fifty, and then considered himself poorly equipped for its execution. 
He was not content to create an epic fiction, much less a romance, but would deal 
only in real poetic truth on foundations as firm as the eternal throne. But for all 
this he implored the help of heaven, as he believed that only close walk with God 
could give life and history to the imagery and feeling treasured in his soul. He 
said : ' This is not to be obtained but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit that 



192 HIS NON- CONFORMITY. 

can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends forth his seraphim with the 
hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the life of whom he pleases. To this 
must be added industrious and select reading, steady observation, and insight into 
all seemly and gracious acts and affairs; till which in some measure compact, I 
refuse not to sustain this expectation.' His blindness abandoned him to a sublime 
loneliness. Every thing material was banished from his fervid soul, while he sang 
to God the story of creation as ' the morning stars ' sung it at first, and the greater 
story of redemption as it was sung by the advent angels. His soul was rapt because 
it breathed the air of a spiritual gospel and took the nourishment which a personal 
Christ imparts. His genius was overpowered by the sense of God's help, and this 
inspired his grace of movement, his glow of adoration. One of his most careful 
biographers writes that ' the horizon of " Paradise Lost " is not narrower than all 
space, its chronology not shorter than eternity ; the globe of our earth a mere spot 
in the physical universe, and that universe itself a drop suspended in the infinite 
empyrean.' Butler says: 'It runs up into infinity.' The gorgeous embroidery 
which adorns ' Paradise Lost ' is wanting in ' Paradise Regained,' clearly because he 
curbed his imagination in deference to evangelic truth. He could not gild the atoning 
cross without making the Gospel blush for the artist. The supernatural existences 
of " Paradise Lost ' are made visible in their darkness by the aid of superhuman 
lights ; but ' Paradise Regained ' shines in the native splendor of plain gospel fact, it 
lives in the simplicity of Christ without bedecking, it extols the reign of grace 
without pomp. Christ is so fully its high art and argument, that Wordsworth pro- 
nounces it 'the most perfect in execution of any thing written by Milton,' and 
Coleridge, ' the most perfect poem extant ' of its kind. 

Milton's religious views were Non-conformist, but there is no decisive proof that 
he was a communicant of any Church. He said, 1642, that he was 'a member incor- 
porate into that truth whereof I was persuaded, and whereof I had declared myself 
openly to be the partaker.' Again, in his ' Treatise on Christian Doctrine : ' ' For my 
own part, I adhere to the Holy Scriptures alone. I follow no other heresy or sect. I 
had not even read any of the works of heretics, so called, when the mistakes of those 
who are reckoned for orthodox, and their incautious handling of Scripture, first 
taught me to agree with their opponents, whenever those opponents agree with 
Scripture.' A State religion was abhorrent to him, and he demanded equal rights 
for all sects, except Roman Catholics. These he would not tolerate in England, on 
the ground that Catholicism was a political machine, which had destroyed the liber- 
ties of England once, and, he believed, would destroy them again if it recovered 
ascendency. He did not regard it as a religious but as a political system in a 
religious guise, directly opposed to civil freedom and, therefore, intolerable. Also, 
he was extremely jealous lest any sect should trench a hair's-breadth upon his personal 
rights of conscience ; hence, he chose to follow his own individual lines. He 
adopted the same course in . his literary, political, and official life, holding no close 



HIS BAPTIST POSITION'S. 193 

intimacy with leading literary men or republicans, not even with Cromwell. He 
said, in 1657 : ' I have very little acquaintance with those in power, inasmuch as I 
keep very much to my own house, and prefer to do so.' In this self-contained 
reserve he appears to have had no intercourse with the literati of the times, 
Waller, Herrick, Shirley, Davenant, Cowley, Gataker, Seldon, Usher or Butler, and 
seems not to have met most of them. The purely literary did not suit him, and 
with many of these he was in warm controversy. 

Bishop Sumner states, that ' during every period of his life, his Sundays were 
wholly devoted to theology.' This was not merely a private exercise, for Buch 
shows that on Sundays he read a chapter of the Greek Testament, and gave an 
exposition of it to his pupils ; and then, at his dictation, they wrote on divinity. 
This course not only nourished his own religious life, but made him a religious 
teacher to others, and he followed this order as well before he became blind as 
after. After 1660 he was so hated that the iron entered his soul, and he preferred 
to dwell in darkness ; or as Macaulay forcibly expresses it : ' After experiencing 
every calamity which is incident to our nature, old, poor, sightless and disgraced, 
he retired to his hovel to die.' 

And still it stands good, that he defended roundly, openly and with his might 
every distinctive principle which the Baptists hold, and his foes ranked him with 
them. In his youth he held Trinitarian views and in his ' Ode on Christ's Nativity' 
speaks of our Lord as, 

' Wont at heaven's high council-table, 
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity.' 

In later life he was tainted with Arianism ; yet, with a strange inconsistency, 
he constructed his ' Paradise Lost' on the fundamental principle of Christ's vicarious 
sacrifice, and maintains this truth without the least ambiguity or equivocation in his 
' Treatise on Doctrine,' together with the co-related tenets of original sin, justifica- 
tion and regeneration. These were not distinctive Baptist doctrines in his day more 
than now ; they were held in common by Baptist and Pedobaptist. He held views 
on divorce which the Baptists of his day did not hold, growing out of his conviction 
that while marriage itself is an appointment of God, it should be known in human 
law only as a civil contract, a sentiment which is now incorporated into the statute 
law of the American States. But on all the doctrines which distinguish Baptists 
from other religious bodies, he stands an open and firm Baptist writer. 

1. As to the Utile of Faith. Usher, the most learned prelate of his day in all that 
concerned religious tradition, was seriously perplexed and compelled to abandon some 
of his positions in his controversy with Milton. Milton swept away all his patristic 
arguments at a stroke, charging that the archbishop was not ' contented with the 
plentiful and wholesome fountains of the Gospel, as if the divine Scriptures wanted a 
supplement, and were to be eked out ... by that indigested heap and fry of authors 



194 HIS VIEW OF INFANT BAPTISM. 

called antiquity.' He then avows : ' That neither traditions, councils, nor canons of 
any visible Church, much less edicts of any magistrate or civil session, but the Script- 
ure only, can be the final judge or rule in matters of religion, and that only in the 
conscience of every Christian to himself.' For this reason he refused to appeal to any 
authority but the Bible in his ' Treatise on Doctrine.' So rigidly did he adhere to 
his rule to ' discard reason in sacred matters,' that Bishop Sumner complains thus : 
' Milton has shown a partiality in all his works, even on subjects not immediately 
connected with religion, for supporting his argument by the authority of Scripture ; ' 
and so the Bible was the mother of his prose and poetic literature. He took the 
exact Baptist ground of his day and ours, when he said : ' I enroll myself among the 
number of those who acknowledge the word of God alone as the rule of faith.' 

2. He took the highest Baptist ground on the constitution and government of 
a Gospel Church. He demanded that it must be a ' communion of saints,' a ' brother- 
hood ' ' professing the faith,' and that ' such only are to be accounted of that num- 
ber as are well taught in Scripture doctrine, and capable of trying by the rule of 
Scripture and the Spirit any teacher whatever, or even the whole collective body of 
teachers.' Such a Church, he says, 'however small its numbers,' is an independent 
body : ' In itself an integral and perfect Church, so far as regards its religious rights ; 
nor has it any superior on earth, whether individual or assembly or convention, to 
whom it can be lawfully required to render submission.' Its offices, he held, are 
presbyters and deacons, and ' the choice of ministers belongs to the people.' This 
excludes all infant membership, on any plea. He protests of infants, that ' they 
are not to be baptized, inasmuch as they are incompetent to receive instruction, or 
to believe, or to enter into a covenant, or to promise or answer for themselves, or 
even to hear the word. For how can infants, who understand not the word, be 
purified thereby, any more than adults can receive edification by hearing an 
unknown language ? For it is not that outward baptism, which purifies only the 
filth of the flesh, that saves us, but the answer of a good conscience, as Peter 
testifies, of which infants are incapable. . . . Baptism is also a vow, and as such can 
neither be pronounced by infants nor be required of them.' No Baptist writer, 
of any period, more thoroughly refutes the doctrine of infant baptism than does 
Milton. 1 

3. As to the order of baptism itself, he holds it to be an ordinance under the 
Gospel : ' Wherein the bodies of believers, who engage themselves to pureness of 
life, are immersed in running water, to signify their regeneration by the Holy Spirit, 
and their union with Christ, in his death, burial and resurrection.' 'It is in vain 
alleged by those, who, on the authority of Mark vii, 4, Luke xi, 38, have introduced 
the practice of affusion in baptism instead of immersion, that to dip and to sprinkle 
mean the same thing ; since in washing we do not sprinkle the hands, but immerse 
them.' His writings abound in this sentiment. In ' Paradise Lost ' (Book xii) he 
teaches that after Christ's resurrection he commissioned his Apostles 



MILTON CALLED AN 'ANABAPTIST.' 195 

' To teach all nations what of him they learned, 
And his salvation ; them who shall believe 
Baptizing in the profiuent stream, the sign 
Of washing them from omilt of sin to life 
Pure, and in mind prepared, if' so befall, 
For death like that which the Redeemer died.' 

■i. As vje have already seen, he was a thorough £a/?tist on all that related to soul 
liberty, excepting in the case of the Roman Catholics. His ' Civil Power in Ecclesi- 
astical Causes ' teaches : ' That for belief or practice in religion, no man ought to be 
punished or molested by any outward force upon earth whatsoever.' Again, in his 
' Christian Doctrine : ' ' The civil power has dominion only over the body and external 
faculties of man ; the ecclesiastical is exercised exclusively on the faculties of the 
mind, which acknowledge no other jurisdiction.' He went further than Locke, 
who excluded atheists from toleration ; for while he repudiated all union of Church 
and State, he held to a union between the State and religion, as such. With this 
one abatement of Catholic toleration, Milton stood with the Baptists on the liberty 
of conscience. Dr. Stoughton writes : ' The Baptists multiplied after the Revolu- 
tion, and continued what they had been before, often obscure, but always stanch 
supporters of independence and voluntaryism. In this respect they differed from 
Presbyterians, and often went beyond Independents.' 2 

For these reasons, many of Milton's biographers have classed him with Baptists. 
Mark Pattison tells us, that ' every Philistine leveled the contemptuous epithet of 
Anabaptist against Milton most freely. He says of himself, that he now lived in 
a world of disesteem. j^"or was there wanting to complete his discomfiture che 
practical parody of the doctrine of divorce. A Mistress Attaway, lace-woman in 
Bell Alley and she-preacher in Coleman Street, had been reading Master Milton's 
book, and remembered that she had an unsanctified husband, who did not speak 
the language of Canaan. She further reflected that Mr. Attaway was not only 
unsanctified, but was also absent with the army, while William Jenney was on the 
spot, and, like herself, also a preacher.' This slant of the modern author accords 
exactly with the abuse of Milton by Featley, on the same subject, in 1644. In his 
' Dippers Dipt,' he first attends to the case of Roger Williams, who had just issued 
his ' Bloody Tenet,' ranking him with the ' Anabaptists,' because he taught that 
'it is the will and command of Cod, that since the coming of his Son, the Lord 
Jesus, a permission of the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or antichristian con- 
sciences and worships be granted to all men in all nations and countries. That 
civil States with their officers of justice are not governors or defenders of the 
spiritual and Christian state and worship. That the doctrine of persecution in 
case of conscience, maintained by Master Calvin, Beza, Cotton and the ministers 
of the Xew England Churches, is guilty of the blood of the souls crying for venge- 
ance under the altar.' On the same page, and in the next sentence, he couples 



196 JOHN TOLLAND ON MILTON. 

Milton with "Williams as an ' Anabaptist ' by the title of his book, saying : ' Witness 
a " Tractate of Divorce," in which the bonds of marriage are let loose to inordinate 
lust, and putting away wives for many other causes besides that which our Saviour 
only appro veth, namely, in cases of adultery.' 

Featley's design was to lampoon the Baptists, and if Milton was not understood 
to stand on their distinctive principles as well as Williams, why did he run tbe risk 
of classing them all together and denouncing them in the same breath as Baptists ? 
This furious writer hated both of them as well as their doctrine of soul-liberty, and 
the law of association led him to denounce them both as symbolizing with those 
who held this as a divine truth. Other men, whom he hated as much as these, had 
written books as distasteful to him, but he did not, therefore, class them with Bap- 
tists, merely to throw additional contempt upon them as a body ; for even Featley 
had some sense. Milton's widow was a Baptist and a member of the Church at 
TSTantwich, Cheshire, but it is not known when she entered its fellowship. Her 
body rests in the meeting-house of that Church, and she appointed Samuel Creton, 
its pastor, her ' loving friend,' as one of her executors. Perhaps this sketch cannot 
better be finished than by giving the following from John Tolland, who wrote the 
first ' Life of Milton,' published in London, 1699 : ' Thus lived and died John 
Milton, a person of the best accomplishments, the happiest genius and the vastest 
learning which this nation, so renowned for producing excellent writers, could ever 
yet show. ... In his early days he was a favorer of those Protestants then oppro- 
briously called by the name of Puritans. In his middle years he was best pleased 
with the Independents and Anabaptists, as allowing of more liberty than others and 
coming the nearest to his opinion to the primitive practice. But in the latter part 
of his life he was not a professed member of any particular sect among Christians ; 
he frequented none of their assemblies, nor made use of their peculiar rites in his 
family. Whether this proceeded from a dislike of their uncharitable and endless 
disputes, and that love of dominion or inclination to persecution, which, he said, 
was a piece of popery inseparable from all Churches, or whether he thought one 
might be a good man without subscribing to any party, and that they had all in 
some things corrupted the institutions of Jesus Christ, I will by no means advent- 
ure to determine ; for conjectures on such occasions are very uncertain, and I have 
never met with any of his acquaintance who could be positive in assigning the true 
reasons for his conduct.' 3 

Few men amongst the Baptists ranked higher at this period than Benjamin 
Keach. He was born in 1640, was immersed on his faith in Christ at the age of 
fifteen, and began to preach at eighteen ; then, in 1668, at the age of twenty-eight, 
he became pastor of the Baptist Church in Horsleydown, London. For the high 
crime of publishing a small work on fundamental Baptist principles he was 
indicted in 1664, and brought before Chief-Justice Hyde. This judge descended 
to the meanness of browbeating his prisoner. The indictment being long, Keach 



PERSECUTION OF REACH. 



197 




asked for a copy, that lie might confer with counsel. This right of every English- 
man was refused ; and the judge, in a towering passion, demanded that he should 
first plead, or he would take his silence as confession, and so pronounce judg- 
ment. He pleaded ' Isot Guilty,' when the judge gave him a copy and an hour's 

time to consider objections. 

\mss 



This he declined as insufficient. 
"When he proceeded to his de- 
fense the Court said : ' You shall 
not speak any thing here, ex- 
cept to say whether you wrote 
the book or not.' The jury 
found a technical error in the 
indictment, but the Court forced 
a verdict of guilty, despite the 
law. The judge then sentenced 
him to prison for two weeks, and 
to stand in the pillory in the 
market-place at Aylesbury, with 
a paper upon his head inscribed : 
' For writing, printing and pub- 
lishing a schismatical book, enti- 
tled "The Child's Instructor; 
or, A New and Easy Primmer." At the same time he was to pay a fine of £20, to 
give sureties for his appearance at the next assize, to recant his doctrines, and his 
book was to be burnt before his eyes in the pillory by the hangman. When in the 
pillory the crowd treated him with great respect, and, instead of hooting and pelt- 
ing him with eggs, as was common, listened eagerly to his exhortations. The 
sheriff, in a great rage, threatened to gag him, but he exhorted the people out of 
the Bible. On the following Saturday he stood in the pillory at Winslow and his 
book w T as burnt. He was often in prison for preaching the Gospel, and had great 
contests with Baxter, Burkitt and Flavel on Baptist peculiarities. Eor many years 
his Church was compelled to meet in private houses, but under the Declaration of 
Indulgence, 1672, they built their first house of worship, which was frequently 
enlarged until it held a thousand hearers. 

Various controversies were rife amongst the Baptists of his day, this with 
others: Whether or not they should sing in public worship? Many Churches were 
much distracted on this subject. The Presbyterians sung certain cast-iron botches, 
called the translation of Sternhold and Hopkins, but these were denounced as 
' human composures ; ' a self-evident truth. Even Beza's translation of David's 
Psalms was irreverently called, by both Baptists and Independents, ' Geneva Jiggs.' 
The Broadmead Records tell us that in 1675 it was proposed that Gifford's Church, 



KEACH IX THE PILLORY. 



198 



CONTROVEBSY ON SINGING. 



at Bristol, with the Presbyterians and Independents, should all meet together for 
worship in trying times ; but some of Gifford's flock, to show their dislike of met- 
rical versions, reserved the right to ' keep on their hatts, or going forth ' during this 
part of the service. Their brethren, however, would not sanction such disorder, 
and agreed that those who ' would not keep off their hatts and sitt still, should be 
desired to stay away.' The press groaned with pamphlets and books on this contro- 
versy. The contest was not as to whether the congregation should sing instead of a 
choir, but, at first, whether they would have any singing at all; and, secondly, if yes, 
whether the saints should do it alone or the wicked should join in and help them. 
Keach was drawn into this controversy, and in 1691 published a book on the subject. 
He demonstrated his gravity of character by keeping a straight face while he solemnly 




REACH S CHAPEL. 



proceeded to show ' that there are various kinds of voices ; namely, (1) a shouting 
noise of the tongue ; (2) a crying noise ; (3) a preaching voice, or noise made that 
way ; (4) a praying or praising voice ; and (5) a singing voice.' He then declares 
in downright earnest that ' singing is not a simple heart singing, or mental singing ; 
but a musical, melodious modulation or tuning of the voice. . . . That singing is a 
duty performed always with the voice, and cannot be done without the tongue, etc' 
He resolved to introduce singing into his Church, cost what it might. But he met 
with great opposition ; and as his was the first Church amongst the Baptists to intro- 
duce singing, so far as now appears, it is interesting to know that it was first used at 
the Lord's Supper about 1673, and confined to communion occasions for about six 
years. Then the practice was extended to days of public thanksgiving, which practice 
continued about fourteen years. After about twenty years the Church, with some 



SINGING INTRODUCED. 199 

dissent, was persuaded to sing every Lord's day. But even then the brethren 
agreed only to sing at the close of the prayer after the sermon ; and so tender were 
they of the consciences of the minority, that they passed a vote not to censure those 
who went out and stood in the chapel-yard, if they could not conscientiously stay in 
and hear the singing. Yet all this care made no matter. The anti-singing party left 
the Church, and established another body in every respect like the old Church, except 
as to singing. This was known then, and is now, as the Maze Pond Church. February 
9th, 1693, Luke Leader, living in Tooley Street, Southwark, with six brethren and 
thirteen sisters, met to spend the day in fasting and prayer without a song in their 
mouth, ' and to settle themselves in a Church state.' When they were gone Keach 
and his Church resolved to 'let their songs abound,' and on the 1st of March actually 
passed a vote ' that they who are for singing may sing as above said.' This new 
congregation continued songless until 1739, when Abraham West refused to become 
their pastor unless they would introduce singing into public worship, which they 
did. And now few congregations in London sing better or more lusty songs of 
praise than that on Old Kent Road, when a thousand people lift their voices high, 
in their new edifice, which cost them £13,000, and" was dedicated by Dr. Landels. 
Other London Churches had hot conflicts on this singing question, the custom being, 
according to Taylor, ' for a long time,' for the discontented to go out of the congre- 
gation ' when the singing commenced.' And Dr. Russell says of the practice, in 
1696: 'This way of singing has a tendency to your ruin, having begun already to 
diminish your numbers, and for two congregations to unite into one, to keep up 
their reputation and supply that deficiency which singing in rhyme has made in 
their numbers. Nay, further, a great part of your members that remain are so dis- 
satisfied, that, as soon as you begin to tune your pipes, they immediately depart like 
men affrighted.' Possibly, with good reason, too. 

This controversy caused most unlovely bickerings in the Churches, some few of 
them Independent as well as Baptist. Concealed worship had first made silence 
necessary, to avoid persecution, till about 1680. The contest was prosecuted through 
numbers of books and pamphlets with great fierceness, the whole question turning 
on the one point, whether or not there was scriptural precept or example for the 
whole congregation, converted and unconverted, to join in the singing as a part of 
divine worship. Yet they all believed that such persons as God had gifted to sing 
might do so, one by one ; and in this form of solo all the Churches had singing, but 
only as the heart dictated the ' melody,' and not by the use of rhyme or written note. 

Mr. Keach was a prolific author, having published forty-three different works, 
some of them large. He had great faith in God, and was the subject of many 
marked interpositions of his goodness. One striking fact is related of his later 
years. He was so ill in 1689 that life was despaired of, even by his physicians. 
Mr. Knollys, who greatly loved him, knelt at his bedside, and after fervently pray- 
ing that God would add to his life the time granted to Hezekiah ; on rising, said. 
15 



200 THE GIFFORDS—HOLLIS— GRANTHAM. 

' Brother Keach, I shall be in heaven before you.' Both the prayer and prediction 
were honored to the letter ; Knollys died two years afterward and Keach lived 
fifteen years. 

For three generations the Giffords were noted Baptist preachers. Andrew 
was the head of the family, and was highly esteemed in the west of England. He 
was born at Bristol, and entered the ministry in 1661, when persecution began to 
be very fierce. Many thrilling stories tell of his adventures and perils, some of 
which he escaped by boldness and ready wit, as well as by gentleness of spirit. 
"While he was preaching at Bristol the mayor and aldermen came with the sword 
and other official regalia, and commanded him to come down. He told them that 
as he was about his Master's business, they would oblige him to wait until he was 
through, then he would go with them. They complied, sat down and listened with 
close attention ; when he went with them to the council-house, where they gave him 
' a soft reproof and caution,' and dismissed him. He was thrice imprisoned in New- 
gate, then a loathsome dungeon, and in many other ways suffered for the truth. He 
was drawn into the uprising of the ill-fated Duke of Monmouth, but escaped the 
legal consequences of his course ; while Elizabeth Gaunt, a noble Baptist, was burned 
at Tyburn for giving refuge to a rebel of whom she had no knowledge, being 
prompted by humanity. But Jeffrys, whose meat and drink it was to sentence a 
Baptist to death, sent her to the stake on the oath of the outlaw whom she had 
ignorantly succored, and burnt her October 23d, 1685. 

A second Andrew Gifford, D.D., grandson of the above, was born at Bristol 
in 1700. He was baptized at the age of fifteen. In 1729 he removed to London 
and formed the Eagle Street Church, which he served for fifty years. He was very 
learned and a powerful preacher. For the last thirty years of his life he was 
Assistant Librarian of the British Museum, a post which he filled with great honor. 

The Hollis family was noted also for its preaching ability, although Thomas 
and John, its most distinguished members, remained in business while they preached. 
Thomas, the younger, was one of the most liberal supporters of Llarvard College, 
Mass. In 1720 he founded a professorship of theology there, and in 1726 a pro- 
fessorship of mathematics and experimental philosophy, and sent over apparatus that 
cost £150. The first of these was endowed with a salary of £80 a year, with £10 
each to ten scholars, four of whom were to be Baptists ; the second professorship 
was to have the same salary, £80. 

Probably the most learned man amongst the General Baptists at this period was 
Thomas Grantham. He became a pastor when very young, and was early called to 
suffer for conscience' sake in Lincoln jail. There he wrote a tract called ' The 
Prisoner against the Prelate,' in which he gave his reasons for separation from the 
Established Church. It is supposed that he wrote the Address or Confession w r hich 
he put into the hand of Charles II., and which is chiefly of value for our purpose 
because it sets forth that it was adopted by many representatives of the London 



SEVENTH-DAT BAPTISTS. 201 

Churches, and ' owned and approved by more than twenty thousand ; ' which shows 
the number of General Baptists at that time, and gives us an idea of their pro- 
portionate strength. If the Particular Baptists numbered ten thousand in 1662, as 
is supposed, this would give the entire Baptist strength of England at thirty thou- 
sand ; which, together with their sympathizers, shows a strong element in the pop- 
ulation, estimated at that time at three hundred thousand in London and from three 
to five millions in England. This fair estimate throws light upon the question of 
fear and hatred toward them in the State Church. 

In the reign of Charles II. the Rev. Francis Bampfield founded the body known 
as the Seventh-Day Baptists. He was a graduate of Oxford and a prebend of Exeter 
Cathedral, but in 1653 subscribed to the commonwealth, and took the Scriptures as 
his sole religious guide. The Act of Conformity in 1662 expelled him from his 
living, and, continuing to preach, he was cast into prison. But he preached in the 
jail-yard, then, being released, he was re-arrested and was imprisoned for eight years. 
Still he not only preached, but formed a Church within the prison walls. On his 
release he founded the first Sabbatarian Church in London, and became its pastor in 
1676. Here he was declared out of the protection of his majesty, was condemned 
to jail during life or the king's pleasure, all his goods were forfeited, and he died in 
Newgate, February, 1684. This body of Baptists never was numerous in England, 
but a bequest having been left to the Church in Whitechapel, the property has now 
become very valuable. On the death of Dr. Black, its late learned pastor, the 
membership was reduced to about half a dozen old people, and the property was 
likely to revert to the crown by the conditions of the bequest. A Seventh-Day 
Baptist pastor could not be found in Europe, and the vice-chancellor decided that, 
if the Seventh-Day brethren could not fill the place, the property would be lost to 
the Baptists. It was the happiness of the writer to open negotiations whereby an 
American was sent over to fill the place, and the Church is more prosperous to-day 
under the labors of Mr. Jones than it has been probably for a century. 

The formation of the Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers, was a 
movement in which the Baptists had some interest. The Continental and some of 
the English Baptists held peculiar views in regard to the lawfulness of judicial 
oaths, the bearing of arms — even in self-defense— the severance of Christians from 
the civil magistracy, simplicity of manners and plainness of dress. One by one 
they dropped these peculiarities, ahd the views adopted by George Fox were little 
more in the origin of the society than a modification of these austere Baptist 
positions. The principal point, however, on which Fox separated from the Baptists 
was the question of the ' inner light ' by which a believer could discern between 
truth and error without the letter of Scripture. The Baptists admitted the indwell- 
ing of the Holy Spirit, whose function it was to interpret the written word, but to 
the Friends 'the leading of the Spirit' was the infallible authority, because the 
voice of God in the soul. It is an unquestionable historical fact that but for the 



202 JAMES II. AND INDULGENCE. 

Baptists of the two hundred years preceding, the Society of Friends would not have 
come into existence in 1648. 

We have many traditions, but little written history of very early Baptist Churches 
in England, especially touching the date of their origin, their line of pastors, the num- 
ber of their members, or the notable events of their history. We have some data, 
however, concerning a few Churches in the west of England. In Cornwall there 
were Baptist Churches as early as 1650. Forty ministers were ejected in Cornwall, 
in 1662, and a Baptist Church was gathered at East Looe, and another at Trelevah. 
The last, from which sprang the Church at Falmouth, was founded by Tregoss. He 
was educated at Oxford and settled at St. Ives, was ejected and suffered frequent 
imprisonment, until the king released him in 1671. We are more highly favored 
in the case of the Broadmead and Fenstanton Churches, the records of which are 
preserved, and other records may one day come to light. John Canne formed the 
Bristol Church in 1611, a body noted as the field of Robert Hall's labors in later 
years. Canne published the first English Bible with references, and it is worthy of 
his fame for learning and consecration to Christ, as well as for his labor in planting 
this living Church. 

With the death of that faithless monarch, Charles II., in 1685, a brighter day 
dawned for the Baptists. On his death-bed he received the last rites of the Roman 
Catholic Church, though he had professed loyalty to the Church of England during 
his life. His disgraceful persecution of the Non-conformists had concealed his secret 
love for Borne ; but when his brother, James II., ascended the throne, he avowed 
himself a Romanist, and the severity of persecution was relaxed. In the theoiy of 
the law, the Catholic was in the same category with the Independent and the 
Baptist as a Non-conformist. And as the Catholics mnst be treated with lenity, so 
must the others be, to make this lenity more easy to them. However much 
Protestants might oppress each other, they were a nnit against Rome. Accordingly, 
when James issued his Declaration of Indulgence, in 1687, dispensing with penal- 
ties against dissenters, he was surprised to meet with remonstrance on all sides, 
and especially from Non-conformists, because they could not purchase religious 
liberty at the price of their civil freedom as Englishmen. The king had assumed 
to do away with all the religious penalties on his own prerogative without law, 
and the dissenting bodies would not accept his toleration without law and con- 
trary to law. James could not hoodwink them by his crafty policy, for they 
saw clearly enough, that when once the Catholics should gain sufficient power, the 
toleration which the king had granted to his own faith for a purpose would be 
withdrawn from others, and Protestant England would see sorrowful times. The 
Baptists joined the other Non-conformists' in protesting against the illegal means 
by which their general liberty had been granted, while they used it freely as a 
right in spreading their faith. And they continued to resist James until the day 
that he was compelled to fly and William of Orange became the ruler of England. 



THE TOLERATION ACT. 203 

Both by training and conviction William was opposed to all persecution for religion, 
and the alliance of all but Catholics against James made his new policy easy. The 
continuous and determined efforts of Baptists, Quakers and some of the Independ- 
ents for complete religious liberty had, by this time, been aided by the pen of 
Chillingworth, and even some of the English clergy were friendly thereto. But, 
perhaps, the fact that the policy of legal repression had been thoroughly tried and 
failed was the most potent consideration in the public mind. The land was sick 
and disgusted with the fiendish attempt to manacle conviction to men's souls by 
chains, and to fry heresy out of their consciences by flames. 

Toleration was forced in England by the two branches into which the Inde- 
pendent Churches divided. They both agreed in the statement of the principle, 
but they differed in regard to its vigorous enforcement. Philip Nye and Thomas 
Goodwin suffered severely for toleration of a certain order, but Hanserd Knollys 
and Roger Williams suffered for absolute religious freedom, without any toleration 
or qualification whatever. Their ideal was that God has directly granted to man in 
his birth and nature the individual right of a free conscience, and no toleration of 
his conscience can be rightfully claimed or defended by his fellow-man. Yet, the 
best defenders of toleration as against absolute religious freedom, such as Jeremy 
Taylor, Chillingworth and Locke, were obliged to base their pleas for toleration on 
the ground of a free conscience, but they stopped short of its full demand. And 
the result of the radical ground taken by the seventeenth and eighteenth century 
Baptists was not only the creation of new impulses in the struggles of religious 
liberty and a new type of human legislation, but the creation of a new conscience 
itself, which asserts to each man his right from God to this freedom. 

The Toleration Act of 1689 is one of the great landmarks of English history, 
incomplete and mutilated as it appears to us now. It failed to place all Englishmen 
on an equality, and left many suffering civil disabilities for religious belief, but it 
was a long step forward, and substantially ended active persecution. The Baptists 
now gave the fullest and freest information of their faith and practices in three 
notable Confessions, two respecting the General and one respecting the Particular 
Baptists. The General brethren issued the so-called ' Orthodox Creed' in 1678, ap- 
proved by their Churches in Bucks, Hereford, Bedford and Oxford, signed by fifty- 
four ' messengers, elders and brethren.' Its Arminianism is mild, and approaches 
moderate Calvinism. The Calvinistic Confession issued in 1677 and again in 1689, 
is decided, though not extreme in its doctrinal positions. Aside from distinctive 
Baptist principles, it is practically the Westminster Confession. Yet, in many things 
the Baptists stood entirely alone. Cnrteis calls them ' Puritans, pure and simple, the 
only really consistent and logically unassailable Puritans. If Puritanism is true, the 
Baptist system is right. . . . For the maintenance of more strictly Calvinistic doc- 
trines, for the exercise of a more rigorous and exclusive discipline, for the practice 
of a more literally scriptural ritual ; ' they were justified in standing alone. 



CHAPTER VI. 



BRITISH BAPTISTS.— LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE— ASSOCIATIONS.— 
THE STENNETTS.— IRISH BAPTISTS. 



I 



T has been stated that several ' Anabaptists ' of London made a declaration 
against universal toleration in 1659, but the value of this statement is light as 
testimony because, even if the declaration is authentic, the names and number of 
its supporters are not known. Possibly, a few Baptists might have sided with Milton 
in proscribing the Catholics, but the weight of large treatises and several Con- 
fessions of large bodies of Churches put them, as a people, on unquestionable record 
to the contrary. With gratitude it may be written, that down to this day, no 
known Baptist has penned a sentence favoring the infliction of bodily pain or 
material penalty by civil government for the belief or practice of a purely religious 
tenet. On the contrary, Avith amazing unity Baptists have demanded the right for 
all men of absolute liberty of conscience in matters of duty to God, without any 
interference whatever. They stand so radically on the cardinal principle of personal 
responsibility to God, that to deny this absolute liberty would be to destroy them- 
selves. Locke only chronicled their inner life in saying, that 'the Baptists were 
from the beginning friends and advocates of absolute liberty — just and true liberty 
— equal and impartial liberty.' 

In 1609 certain Puritans petitioned for toleration, but disclaimed all ' way for 
toleration unto Papists, our suit being of a different nature from theirs,' and the 
English Independents asked for little more. Stoughton, in his late 'Ecclesiastical 
History of England,' entirely agrees with Masson, in Baptist lead here. He writes: 
' The Baptists were foremost in the advocacy of religious freedom, and perhaps, to 
one of them, Leonard Busher, citizen of London, belongs the honor of presenting, in 
this country, the first distinct and broad plea for liberty of conscience.' This com- 
prehensive book, indeed, covers the subject so forcefully, that scarcely a new thought 
has been added to its treatment since 1614. It maintains that it is '.lawful for every 
person or persons, yea, Jews and Papists, to write, dispute, confer, and reason, print 
and publish any matter touching religion, either for or against whomsoever.' That 
it is irrational to persecute any man for religion, because faith is the gift of God 
to each man, which neither bishop nor king can command, to make Christians by 
force. He pronounces it ' unnatural and abominable, yea, monstrous for one 
Christian to destroy another for difference and questions of religion.' 

So ringingly does this book present the doctrine of the nineteenth century, that 



WHAT BAPTISTS ASKED FOE. 205 

Masson says, ' It cannot be read now without a throb ; ' and speaking of Helwys's 
Church, with which he as well as Barclay connects B usher, he uses this strong language: 
' His Baptist congregation maintained itself in London side by side with Jacob's 
congregation of Independents, established in 1616.' As if to signalize still further 
the discrepancy of the two sets of sectaries on the toleration point, there was put 
forth in that very year, by Jacob and the Congregatioualists, a ' Confession of Faith,' 
containing this article : ' We believe that we, and all true visible Churches, ought to 
be overseen, and kept in good order and peace, and ought to be governed under 
Christ, both supremely and also subordinately, by the civil magistrate ; yea, in 
causes of religion, when need is.' ' A most humble supplication ' from the Baptists 
to Charles I., 1620, opposes all kinds of religious persecution. Still, when Chilling- 
worth sided with the Baptists on soul-liberty, in 1637, he stood alone in the Church 
of England. The eight Churches, 1613, laid down this doctrine with the clearness 
and fullness of an American Bill of Rights to-day, in Article XLVII of their 
Confession. Featley's wrath boiled over at its radical utterances, and devout Baxter 
protested : 'I abhor unlimited liberty and toleration of all, and think myself easily 
able to prove the wickedness of it.' * But the Baptist idea spread against all 
resistance. Treatise after treatise came from the Baptist press in its defense, until 
one hundred ' baptized congregations ' formulated it in Article XXI, of what is 
now known as the Confession of 1689, although Crosby claims that it was only 
republished in that year, and that the first edition was issued in 1677. It says : 
' God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and 
commandments of men, which are in any thing contrary to his word 7 or not contained 
in it. So that, to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands, out of con- 
science, is to betray true liberty of conscience ; and the requiring of an implicit faith 
and absolute and blind obedience is to destroy liberty of conscience and reason also.' 
Xor were the General Baptists a whit behind their Calvinistic brethren on this 
subject. They issued their belief in ' An Orthodox Creed or a Protestant Confes- 
sion of Faith.' 1678, in which Article XLV says : ' Subjection in the Lord ought to 
be yielded to the magistrates in all lawful things commanded by them, for con- 
science' sake, with prayers for them for a blessing upon them, paying all lawful and 
reasonable customs and tribute to them, for the assisting of them against foreign, 
domestical and potent enemies.' Then, the next Article, after fully setting forth 
that Christ is the only King of conscience, and that no man can hold it in ' usurpa- 
tion,' declares : ' Therefore, the obedience to any demand or decree, that is not 
revealed in, or (is) consonant to his word, in the holy oracles of Scripture, is a 
betraying of the true liberty of conscience. And the requiring of an implicit faith 
and a blind obedience destroys liberty of conscience and reason also, it being 
repugnant to both.' The 'Westminster Confession,' 1618, Chapter XX, says in 
substance the same thing; but in the same chapter it maintains that as matters 
'concerning faith, worship ... or such erroneous opinions or practices, as either in 



206 THE PRESBYTERIAN POSITION. 

their own nature, or in the manner of publishing and maintaining them, are 
destructive to the external peace and order which Christ hath established in the 
Church ; they may be lawfully called to account, and proceeded against by the 
censures of the Church, and by the power of the civil magistrate.'' Then, of the duty 
of the civil magistrate himself, Chapter XXIII says : ' It is his duty to take order, 
that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept 
pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and 
abuses in worship and discipline be prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances 
of God duly settled, administered and observed.' Such hybrid liberty of conscience 
as this may account for the fact, that when the Presbyterians had the ascendency in 
the Assembly and Parliament, 1648, a statute was passed inflicting imprisonment 
upon those who held ' that the baptism of infants is unlawful and void, and that 
such persons ought to be baptized again.' The same ordinance inflicted ' the pains 
of death,' ' without benefit of clergy,' upon other heretics therein mentioned. 
Neal pronounces this law ' one of the most shocking laws I have met with in 
restraint of religious liberty,' and shows, ' that the governing Presbyterians would 
have made a terrible use of their power, had they been supported by the sword of 
the civil magistrate.' 2 Whatever else this contradictory teaching of the Westminster 
Confession may prove, it fully supports Professor Masson in saying, that neither 
the Presbyterians nor the Independents of that period had any proper notion of 
absolute or universal toleration, much less of perfect liberty, that they were mere 
learners in that school, and were far behind ' the old Baptists in their views.' He 
is not choice of his words here, but says squarely : 

' As a body, the Presbyterians of 1644 were absolute Anti-tolerationists. The 
proofs are so abundant, collectively they make such an ocean, that it passes compre- 
hension how the contrary could ever have been asserted. From the first appearance 
of the Presbyterians in force, after the opening of the Long Parliament, it was their 
anxiety to beat down the rising idea of Toleration ; and after the meeting of the 
Westminster Assembly, and the publication of the " Apologetical Narration " of the 
Independents, the one aim of the Presbyterians was to tie Toleration around the 
neck of Independency, stuff the two struggling monsters into one sack, and sink 
them to the bottom of the sea.' In 1648 Cradock, the Independent, used lan- 
guage quite as strong, saying: ' I know also by the way that there are a com- 
pany of people that would arrogate the name of Presbyterie though improperly. 
The name doth not beseem them, that is, those that have been the Bishop's creatures 
and are all for fire and fagot; there are some such among us and they would arrogate 
the name of Presbytery ; I would not have them do it, it doth not befit them.' 3 

When we come to trace the effects of Toleration on the English Baptists, after 
it was procured, we see at once the paralyzing result of false doctrine, and their 
decline in spiritual power. This is nowhere more distinctly visible than in their 
Associations and General Assemblies. The insidious leaven of centralization had even 
worked itself into the later notions of Smyth, and the fifth charge on which Morton 
and Helwys expelled him in Holland was his teaching, ' that an elder in one Church 



THE RISE OF ASSOCIATIONS. 207 

is an elder of all Churches in the world.' A tinge of interchurch authority crept 
into the Confession of the eight Churches, 1643, in these words : ' Although the 
particular congregations be distinct and several bodies . . . they are to have counsel 
and keep one of another, if necessity require it, as members of one body in the 
common faith, under Christ their head.' The paternal principle of Associations was 
laid down here, with a slight margin for its abuse also. An Association was formed 
in 1653, when the Somerset Churches, with those of Wilts, Devon, Gloucester and 
Dorset, met at Wells, ' on the sixth and seventeenth days of the month.' This body 
of Particular Baptists published the ' Somerset Confession ' in 1656, which is not 
to be confounded with the ' Somerset Confession ' issued by the General Baptists in 
1691. The Midland Association of Particular Baptists was formed in 1655, at War- 
wick, but was reconstructed in 1690, and still exists ; its original record books, 
however, are lost. 

The Associations very early encroached on the rights of the Churches. Adam 
Taylor describes their business thus : 1. The reformation of inconsistent and 
immoral conduct, in ministers and private Christians ; 2. The suppression of heresy ; 
3. Reconciling of differences between members and Churches ; 4. Giving advice in 
difficult cases to individuals and Churches ; 5. Proposing plans of usefulness ; 
6. Recommending cases requiring pecuniary support ; 7. Devising means to spread 
the Gospel in the world at large, but especially in their own Churches. The first 
four of these would not be tolerated amongst us, and the desire for a stronger bond 
than that of mutual love soon brought them into serious trouble. The General 
Baptists experienced this, first, by establishing a ' General Assembly,' it is not 
certain at what precise date, but before 1671. It met only on ' emergent occasions,' 
on an average, once in two years. Article XXXIX of the ' Orthodox Creed ' 
claims that it had ' divine authority, and is the best means under heaven to preserve 
unity, to prevent heresy, and superintendence among, or in any congregation what- 
soever, within its limits of jurisdiction.' Appeals were made to this assembly ' in 
case any injustice be done, or heresy and schism is countenanced in any particular 
congregation of Christ, . . . and such General Assemblies have lawful powers to 
hear and determine, and also to excommunicate.' Here, the independent polity of 
Baptist Churches was merged into a form of presbytery, and its disastrous effects 
soon became apparent. 

The first ' General Assembly ' of the Particular Baptists was held in 1689, on 
a call from the London Churches, signed by Baffin, Knollys and Reach, with three 
others. The request was for ' a general meeting here in London of two principal 
brethren, of every Church of the same faith with us, in every county respectively.' 
This body is merely what is now known as an ' Association,' and it ' disclaimed all 
manner of superiority or superintendency over the Churches.' on the ground, that 
it had ' no authority or power to prescribe or impose any thing upon the faith and 
practice of any of the Churches of Christ, their whole intendment being to be helpers 



208 THE LONDON ASSEMBLY. 

together of one another, by way of counsel and advice.' At its fourth meeting in 
May, 1692, there were one hundred and seven associated Churches, and the Assembly 
voted : ' That no Churches make appeals to them to determine matters of faith or 
fact ; but propose, or query for advice.' At this time, the General Baptists had 
fallen into great trouble by making their Assembly a court of appeals, and the 
Particular Baptists resolved to take warning and escape that fate. For some cause, 
which does not appear, the London Churches dropped out of the Assembly after 
1694, but the country Churches continued to meet, down to 1730, and the records 
of their meetings are still preserved. 

Another body, called indifferently the 'London Association' and 'Assembly,' 
was organized in 1704, by delegates from thirteen Churches. At its first meeting it 
gave a most decided condemnation to Antinomianism. The doctrine of Tobias 
Crisp disturbed the Baptists at that time, as well as the Presbyterians and Inde- 
pendents ; which doctrine was in substance, that God could lay nothing to the 
charge of an elect person, on the ground of Christ's righteousness imputed to him ; 
hence, he lived in complete sanctification, although he committed much sin. On 
this subject the Assembly said : ' That the doctrine of sanctification by the imputa- 
tion of the holiness of Christ's nature, does, in its consequences, render inherent 
holiness by the Holy Spirit unnecessary, and tends to overthrow natural as well as 
revealed religion.' Tiiis was in no sense, however, a judicial decision to be followed 
by discipline, in case it were rejected, but as ' the opinion of the Assembly.' The 
supposed strong government of the General Baptist Assembly brought them into 
conflict with an eminent Sussex pastor, of learning and piety, concerning his views 
of the nature of Christ; one Matthew Caffyn. Mr. Wright charged him with 
defective views touching our Lord's divinity, and he satisfied the Assembly that he 
was sound on that subject, and also on the doctrine of the Trinity. But "Wright 
saw an implied rebuke in the Assembly's exoneration of Caffyn, and withdrawing 
from the Assembly, he began to agitate the matter amongst the Churches. Caffyn 
was led into public controversy, and after a while, ran into teachings substantially 
Arian. Thus two parties sprang up, and four times the Assembly was disturbed 
with contention until, in 1698, Caffyn's doctrines were declared heretical, in conse- 
quence of which some Churches seceded and formed another General Association. 
This breach was never healed. Thus, the Presbyterian powers assumed by the 
Assembly failed to prevent either heresy or schism, as might have been expected, 
and by 1750 a majority of the General Baptists became Anti-Trinitarians. The 
Assembly continues to this day, meets every Whitsuntide, the shadow of its former 
self, and is still Anti-Trinitarian. 

But, decline amongst the Particular Baptists was very marked also. Antinomi- 
anism and hyper-Calvinism struck the Churches with a blight that was fatal not 
only to their growth, but often to their existence. Calvinism had taken a most 
repulsive form, which presented God in a severe and magisterial light only, and 



EMINENT BAPTISTS— GALE, GILL. 209 

which led men to look upon him with distrust, as oppressive and unjust. True, all 
England was in a state of religious stagnation. Worldliness characterized the Church 
and infidelity was rampant ; the Stuart period was bearing its natural fruit, and the 
Baptists went down in the scale with the rest. Under persecution they multiplied 
on every side, and for a time toleration almost killed them. Yet, even then there 
were found amongst them men of consecration, learning and zeal. 

Dr. John Gale was one of these, whose name has come down to us with great 
honor. Though an Englishman by birth, he was educated at Leyden, possibly 
because Dissenters could not then take degrees at the English Universities. At the 
age of nineteen he became a Doctor in Philosophy, and after studying at Amsterdam, 
under Limborch, in 1705 he became assistant pastor of the Church in Paul's Alley, 
Barbican. With his accomplishments in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, history and 
divinity, he was a powerful preacher, who possessed great refinement of religious 
feeling. Wilson says : ' His voice was clear and melodious ; his style perspicuous, 
easy and strong ; his method exact : his reasoning clear and convincing ; and his 
deportment in the pulpit easy, yet accompanied with a seriousness and solemnity 
becoming the work in which he was engaged. He had an almost irresistible power 
over the passions, which he ever used agreeably to reason, and directed to the profit 
and advantage of his hearers.' But he died in his forty-first year. He is best known 
to us by his 'Reply to Dr. Wall's History of Infant Baptism.' This reply is a spec- 
imen of candid scholarship seldom met with in the annals of religious controversy. 

But the man who made the deepest mark upon the Baptists of his time was 
John Gill, a native of Kettering, Northamptonshire, born in 1697. Very early in 
life he gave evidence of exceptional gifts, and his friends tried in vain to secure his 
admission to one of the Universities ; but under private teachers he became a superior 
scholar in Latin, Greek and logic. He was baptized when nineteen and entered 
the ministry at twenty-three. After the death of Benjamin Stinton, successor to 
Keach, in Horsleydown, John Gill was proposed as Stinton's successor, but on putting 
the question to vote a majority rejected him, when his friends withdrew and 
formed the Church afterward located in Carter Lane, Tooley Street, March 22, 1719, 
and on the same day he became its pastor. Gill's party worshiped for some years 
in the school-room of Thomas Crosby, the historian, until Reach's Church, which 
they had left, built a new chapel in Unicorn Yard, when they went to the old chapel 
in Goat Street, which Keach's people had ceased to use. Here the doctor preached 
until 1757, when they built for him a new meeting-house in Carter Lane, where he 
continued until his death in 1771. After many years of study he became a profound 
scholar in the Rabbinical Hebrew and a master of the Targum, Talmuds, the Rab- 
both and the book Zohar, with their ancient commentaries. He largely assisted 
Dr. Kennicott in his collation, and published a dissertation concerning the antiq- 
uity of the Hebrew language, etc. He was a prolific author, producing amongst 
many other weighty works, his 'Cause of God and Truth;' his 'Body of Divin- 



210 



JOHN RirPON. 



ity ; ' and his learned ' Commentary on the Bible.' Toplady, his intimate friend, 
says of him, that 

' If any man can be supposed to have trod the whole circle of human learning, 
it was Dr. Gill. ... It would, perhaps, try the constitutions of half the literati in 
England, only to read with care and attention the whole of what he said. As deeply 
as human sagacity enlightened by grace could penetrate, he went to the bottom of 
every thing he engaged in. . . . Perhaps no man, since the days of St. Austin, has 
written so largely in defense of the system of grace, and, certainly, no man has 
treated that momentous subject, in all its branches, more closely, judiciously and 
successfully.' He was also a great controversalist as well as a scholar. On this 
subject Toplady adds : ' What was said of Edward the Black Prince, that he never 
fought a battle that he did not win ; what has been remarked of the great Duke of 
Marlborough, that he never undertook a siege which he did not carry, may be justly 
accommodated to our great philosoper and divine.' 

And yet, with all his ability, he was so high a supralapsarian, that it is hard to 
distinguish him from an Antinomian. For example, he could not invite sinners to 
the Saviour, while he declared their guilt and condemnation, their need of the new 
birth ; and held that God would 
convert such as he had elected 
to be saved, and so man must not 
interfere with his purposes by 
inviting men to Christ. Under 
this preaching his Church stead- 
ily declined, and after half a cent- 
ury's work he left but a mere 
handful. He did not mean to | 
teach Antinomianism, and yet, §j| 
in 1755, he republished Dr. jj 
Crisp's works, which had given 
rise to so much contention, with |§ 
explanatory notes, defending 
Crisp from the charge of Anti- jj| 
nomianism, although his doc- 
trines had fallen like a mildew jjj 
upon the Churches of the land, jjj 
and none now pretend that Crisp 
was a safe teacher. 

John Rippon succeeded Dr. 
Gill as pastor at Carter Lane. He was born in Tiverton, Devonshire, April, 1751, 
and at sixteen became a servant of Christ. At seventeen he entered Bristol Acad- 
emy, and at twenty-one became pastor in London, filling the same pastorate sixty- 
three years, or till 1836. Not so learned or profound as Gill, his preaching was 
fuller of life and affection, so that for years his Church was the largest of the Baptist 




DR. JOHN" RIPPON. 



THE STENNETT8. 2. 1 1 

faith in the metropolis, numbering four hundred members. He was extremely judi- 
cious and popular. He prepared a selection of one thousand one hundred and 
seventy-four hymns, which were used in his congregation to the day of Mr. Spurgeon, 
his successor, who revised and uses it still. Rippon also established and conducted 
the ' Baptist Register,' a monthly, from 1790 to 1802. He founded almshouses in Car- 
ter Lane, but when London Bridge was erected in 1832, they were removed to make 
way for its approaches. He died in 1836, aged eighty-five, and sleeps in Bunhill Fields. 

This period is noteworthy for the Stennett Family. Dr. Edward was a physi- 
cian, born A. D. 1663. In the reign of Charles II. he dwelt in the castle at Walling- 
ford, Berkshire. Regardless of danger he preached regularly, and his great ability 
as a physician led the gentlemen of the neighborhood to shield him from calamity. 

His son, Joseph Stennett, became a Christian early in life under the instructions 
of his parents. They gave him a good education in philosophy, the liberal sciences 
and languages, as French, Italian, the Hebrew and other tongues. In 1690 he 
became pastor of the Seventh-Day Baptist Church, meeting in Pinner's Hall, Lon- 
don, and labored there until his death, 1713. He ranked as a leader in the ministry 
for piety, eloquence and authorship. When William III. escaped assassination, 
Mr. Stennett drew up an able address of congratulation for the Baptists, and pre- 
sented it to the king ; and Queen Anne sent him a present in acknowledgment of 
his thanksgiving sermon for the victory of Hochstedt. He published three octavo 
volumes of sermons, a version of Solomon's Song, a translation from the French of 
the 'Discoveries by the Spaniards in America,' with many hymns on the ordinances 
and other subjects. Tate, the poet laureate, commended his poetry; and Sharp, 
Archbishop of York, desired him to revise the English version of the Psalms. 
Promotion was tendered him in the English Church, which he declined, for he was 
a sincere Baptist and remained amongst his own people. In 1702 David Russen 
wrote a little book against the Baptists, which attack Mr. Stennett answered, with 
uncommon dignity and learning. He took the measure of his foe from the start, 
and something of his style may be seen in the opening paragraph of his preface. 
' If the author of the book to which this is an answer (who always affects to be thought 
veiy learned and sometimes abundantly witty) had only looked down upon the 
Anabaptists with that contempt with which they are used to be treated, and had 
barely diverted himself with the ignorance and folly he pretends to find among 
them, I should scarcely have given him or myself the trouble of an answer ; for 
this treatment would have rendered them not so much the object of hatred as of 
compassion. But when his divertisement is cruel, and while he throws fire-brands, 
arrows and death, he seems to be mightily satisfied with the sport. I hope none 
can justly blame me for endeavoring to turn aside the edge of his reproaches by a 
modest defense. For as little sense as the " Anabaptists " have, they can feel when 
their reputation is wounded; and as ignorant as they are, the)' have learned of the 
wisest of men to value a good name more than precious ointment, especially when 



212 THE STENNETTS. 

they believe that to be the truth which is struck at through their sides under 
the character of a fundamental error.' 

This frank courtesy and urbanity never foi*sook him in the discussion, while he 
vindicated the truth with a giant's hand. So sweet was his spirit and so dignified 
his manner, that when his grandson proceeded to a similar work, many years after- 
ward, he begged that his grandfather's mantle might fall upon hiin, saying: 'The 
example of a much honored ancestor, who has not only done singular justice to the 
argument itself, but, in the management of it, has shown a noble superiority to the 
rudest and most indecent invectives, that were, perhaps, ever thrown out against 
any set of men professing Christianity.' Joseph Stennett's work on Baptism had 
great influence in its day. It was of him that Dun ton wrote the doggerel : 

' Stennett the patron and the rule of wit, 
The pulpit's honor and the saint's delight.' 

The second Joseph Stennett, and the third preacher in the family, was the son 
of the above-named, and was also a Seventh-Day Baptist. He was born in London 
in 1692, and died in 1758. He was thoroughly educated, united with the Church 
at sixteen, and became pastor of the Church at Exeter at the age of twenty-two. 
When he was forty-five he succeeded his father as pastor of the Church in Little 
Wild Street, London, a Church which attained great note in the denomination. He 
was highly honored in the metropolis as a man of large attainments and many graces 
of character. The Duke of Cumberland submitted his name to the University of Edin- 
burgh, in 1754, for the degree of Doctor of Divinity, which honor was granted. 
Onslow, the Speaker of Parliament, Gibson, the Bishop of London, and several of 
the ministry of George II., numbered him amongst their personal friends ; and he 
enjoyed the full confidence of the Baptist, Presbyterian and Independent pastors of 
London, in whose behalf he submitted an address to the king. He had two sons, 
members of his Church, and in turn both of them became his assistants in the pas- 
torate. The eldest, the third Joseph Stennett, and the fourth preacher in the line, 
became his father's assistant April 2, 1740, and served in that capacity for two years 
and a half, when he settled as pastor of the Baptist Church of Coate, Oxfordshire. 
Little is known of him beyond this. 

Samuel Stennett, his brother, was the fifth and most famous in this preaching 
family. He was born in Exeter in 1727, was educated under all the advantages of 
the day and became eminent for his knowdedge of the Greek, Latin and Oriental 
languages, and of sacred literature in general. This ability, with great consecration 
to God, suavity of manner, cheerfulness of spirit and purity of heart, secured for 
him the universal love of his brethren. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was 
conferred upon him by the University of Aberdeen, in 1763. He had been im- 
mersed by his father at Exeter before he came to London, and became a member 
of the Church in Little Wild Street. 



SAMUEL STENKETT. 2 13 

In order to avoid perplexity, it may be desirable to give a brief sketch of this 
Church. It was one of a community of branches forming but one Church and meet- 
ing in various places. Prior to 1691 they were all Arminian, but in that year this 
branch declared itself independent and Calvinistic, and bought the chapel in Little 
Wild Street. This building had a curious history. The Portuguese had first occu- 
pied it for Roman Catholic worship, and the Spanish ambassador for the same pur- 
pose, after which it fell into the hands of the Baptists ; but it was rebuilt in 1788. 
The Baptist Church worshiping here was never a Seventh-Day body, although it was 
served so long by the Stennetts, who were Sabbatarians in their personal faith. Some- 
times a Sabbatarian Church used an ordinary Baptist chapel on Saturday, and of tener a 
non-Sabbatarian minister took the morning or afternoon service at a Sabbatarian 
# place, and also at an ordinary Baptist church on Sunda}-. On this plan Samuel Sten- 
nett, who was invited to become pastor of the Seventh-Day Church which his father 
and grandfather had served, but who did not accept the office, yet preached and 
administered the ordinances to that Church for many years. 

The minutes of this Church say, that at a meeting held July 30, 1747, ' having 
had several trials of the gifts of Brother Samuel Stennett, and having heard him 
preach this evening, it is agreed that he be called out into the public service of the 
ministry.' A year later he was chosen assistant pastor, and ten years after this, 
being then thirty -one years of age, he was ordained to succeed his father as pastor. 
On entering the pastorate he said to his Church, 'I tremble at the thought.' Dr. 
Gill and Mr. Walling preached at his ordination, June 1, 175S, and he remained as 
pastor for forty-seven years, during which he was eminent for zeal, discretion, and 
learning. He also stood foremost amongst the champions of religious liberty. On 
this subject William Jones, the historian, says : ' He wisely concluded that whilst 
oppressive statutes were suffered to remain as part of the law of the land, there 
could be no security against their proving at some future time a handle for perse- 
cution. The doctor's judicious publications upon these subjects cannot fail to keep 
alive a grateful recollection of his talents, and to endear his name to posterity.' 
Allusion is here made to his two works, appealing to Parliament for the repeal of 
all persecuting laws. Dr. Winter said of him : ' To be able in the line of his ances- 
try to trace some, who, for the cause of liberty and religion, had quitted their native 
country, and their temporal possessions at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he 
accounted a far higher honor than to be the offspring of nobles or of monarchs.' 

We have his non-controversial works in three octavo volumes, together with a 
large number of his well-known hymns ; such as, 'What wisdom, majesty and grace,' 
i To Christ, the Lord, let every tongue ' (altered in modern versions so as to begin 
with the third verse, ' Majestic sweetness,' etc.), and ' On Jordan's stormy banks I 
stand.' This last hymn appears to have been written in 1787, the year in which 
Rippon commenced his ' Selections.' Rippon was personally acquainted with Sten- 
nett, for they were Baptist pastors together in London from 1773 to 1795, and in the 
10 



214 



HIS SACRED HYMNS. 



fourth edition of his ' Selections,' published about the last-named year, this hymn is 
found in its original form, ' On Jordan's stormy banks,' as it is found in all the 
English editions down to our day. The first variation therefrom, so far as the 
writer is aware, is found in an American edition of the ' Christian Psalmist,' New 
York, 1850. Forgetting that Stennett alluded to the Jordan at Jericho, described 
in Josh, iii, its compilers mistook him as describing its literal banks, instead of 
using a bold metonymy, which speaks of the banks for what they contain ; namely, 
waters in vehement commotion ; and so they tamed him down to their own concep- 
tions, and to ' rugged banks.' About half a dozen American compilers have re- 
tained this namby-pamby innovation, for which they might as well have used stony 
banks or muddy banks ; for the inner and outer banks of the Jordan at that spot 
are both. But Spurgeon, Rippon's successor, in re-editing the old hymn book (under* 
the name of ' Our Own Hymn-Book ') which has been used in Rippon's congregation 
from his day, says (1866) : ' The hymns have been drawn from the original works 
of their authors, and are given, as far as practicable, just as they were written ; ' and 
so lie retains Stennett's original form, ' stormy banks,' and with it his inspiring 
figure. Will the reader pardon this digression, for Baptists should be the last to 
slaughter their own hymnists in 
their singing. 

The ministry of Samuel 
Stennett in Little Wild Street 
was peculiarly fascinating to large 
minds. There lie immersed the 
renowned Dr. Joseph Jenkins, 
Caleb Evans^ afterward President 
of Bristol College, and Rev. Jo- 
seph Hughes, the founder of the 
British and Foreign Bible Soci- 
ety. Halloway, the noted en- 
graver, sat under his ministry 
also ; and John Howard, the 
immortal philanthropist, was a 
member of his congregation for 



many of the last years of his life. 
When Howard was young he met 
with an Independent congrega- 
tion at Stoke Eewington. But 
in 1756 or 1757 he took up his residence at Cardington, about three miles south- 
east of Bedford, and the same distance from Elstow, Bunyan's birthplace. For 
a considerable time he worshiped in the congregation where Gifford and Bunyan 
had been pastors, then under the pastoral charge of Joshua Symonds, with whom 




JOHN HOWARD. 



JOHN HO WARD. 2 1 3 

he became intimate. At that time this Church had a rupture, in which the Pedo- 
baptist portion of the congregation withdrew and formed a new one, Howard going 
with them, and contributing liberally to the erection of a new meeting-house. In 
1777 Howard's sister died and bequeathed to him a house in London, and from 
that time he spent much of his life in that city, and attached himself to Dr. Sten- 
nett's congregation, aiding largely in rebuilding the chapel. 

In Stennett's funeral sermon for the great philanthropist, he quotes from a letter 
which Howard had written to him in Smyrna, in which he says : ' The principal 
reason of my writing is most sincerely to thank you for the many pleasant hours I 
have had in reviewing the notes I have taken of the sermons I have had the happi- 
ness to hear under your ministry. These, sir, with many of your petitions in prayer,, 
have been and are my songs in the house of my pilgrimage. With unabated pleasure 
I have attended your ministry ; no man ever entered more into my religious senti- 
ments, or more happily expressed them. It was some little disappointment when 
any one else entered the pulpit. How many Sabbaths have I ardently longed to spend 
in Wild Street ; on these days I generally rest, or, if at sea, keep retired in my little^ 
cabin. It is you that preach, and, I bless God, I attend with renewed pleasure.' 

In the funeral sermon preached for him by Stennett, he avows that Howard 
' was not ashamed of those truths he heard stated, explained and enforced in this 
place ; he had made up his mind, as he said, upon his religious sentiments, and was 
not to be moved from his steadfastness by novel opinions obtruded on the world. . . . 
You know, my friends, with what seriousness and devotion he attended, for a long 
course of years, on the worship of God among us.' Howard alludes to the character 
of the truths enforced by Stennett, saying : ' No man ever entered more into my re- 
ligious sentiments, or more happily expressed them.' In addition to the foundation 
principles of the Gospel held by Howard, Stennett preached the distinctive princi- 
ples of the Baptists, in their roundest form, and to these Howard listened ' for a 
long course of years,' truths very distasteful to others. Dr. Winter says, that 
Stennett had none of that ' cool indifference to religious principles, which under the 
specious names of candor and liberality has too much prevailed amongst many 
modern Christians.' Stennett also speaks of Howard's great ' candor,' and of his 
' having met with difficulties in his inquiries after truth.' Concerning the subjects of 
this struggle in Howard's mind, neither of them informs us, but as Howard had always 
been an orthodox Dissenter on principle, and that Stennett ' happily expressed ' his 
own religious sentiments, the fair inference is, that he had adopted Stennett's 
Baptist views. 

Many of the ablest Independent pastors preached the common doctrines held 
by Stennett, and notably amongst them Dr. Addington, of Miles Lane. He forced 
Stennett into a controversy with him on Baptism, by violently attacking his princi- 
ples. The latter's masterly reply filled two volumes, and if Howard did not sympathize 
in these sentiments, it is hard to understand the bearing of his own words, or why he 
listened to Stennett ' for a long course of years.' When Howard lived at Stoke 



216 HOWARD PROBABLY A BAPTIST. 

Newington, his only son was christened as a babe, and at Bedford he left Symond's 
congregation because he would not baptize babes, giving £400 toward building a 
new meeting-house there, where infant baptism should be practiced, all of which 
shows that he had a stout conscience on the subject at that time. But when he 
removed to London, he not only contributed liberally to build a Baptist chapel for a 
man who all his life repudiated infant baptism, with all his heart, as a radical element 
of popery, but ' for a long course of years ' he statedly turned his back on places of 
worship where it was practiced, helping to build up those of the contrary order. 
'On this subject Stennett says : ' With what cheerfulness he assisted in the building 
•of this house (Little Wild Street) you need not be told. He accounted it an honor, 
he said, to join his name with yours.' All this indicates a serious change in Howard's 
mind on the subject in question, and possibly, the shameful wickedness of his only 
«on had shaken his confidence in infant baptism as a divine institution. Without 
some such change, Stennett would scarcely have used this strong language : ' He was 
not ashamed of those truths he heard stated, explained and enforced in this place.'' 

We have already seen that the Baptists of this period had much in common 
with the Society of Friends of our own times, while these had many quaint customs 
peculiar to themselves. In public worship the men and women sat on opposite 
sides of the house, the exhorting and ' prophesying ' being prompted as the ' Spirit 
moved.' The Baptists, however, held to an ordained ministry and the need of the 
ordinances. Ordination was made a serious matter, and was accompanied with the 
laying on of hands, fasting and prayer, and the power to confer it was lodged in 
the individual Church. They knew nothing of our modern Councils for Ordination, 
Imt commonly, as a mere matter of courtesy, invited neighboring jDastors, not as 
representatives of other Churches, but on their personal kindness, to take part in 
the public recognition services. This is still the English practice, the American 
Council representing other Churches being unknown there. 

The marriage service amongst them was similar to that of the 'Friends' of 
to-day. They rejected the rites of the Prayer- Book and the Established clergy 
refused to marry them. They devised a public service of their own, therefore, in 
which the parties took each other by mutual consent, without the aid of a minister. 
After due notice the couple stood up before the congregation, holding each other's 
hand, and publicly took each other for husband and wife. They then drew up a con- 
tract, or certificate of marriage, and signed it, and the persons present attested it as 
witnesses. An exhortation was given, a prayer was offered, and the solemnity was 
ended. Such marriages were legal until the Marriage Act of 1753, which exempted 
them only in the case of Quakers and Jews, while Baptists were compelled to seek 
legal marriage in the Episcopal Church. 

The imposition of hands was practiced in the election of deacons, and quite gen- 
erally in connection with baptism, especially amongst the General Baptists, this ques- 
tion being a disturbing element in many congregations. Fasting also was esteemed 



CURIOUS BAPTIST CUSTOMS. 217 

a religious duty, but no set times were appointed for its performance. The question 
of feet-washing was a dividing question, and for a time this usage was practiced in 
some of the Churches, generally meeting stout resistance ; it soon disappeared. 
The anointing of the sick was quite common, being approved by the example of 
Kiffin and Knollys ; but physicians were not pushed aside, while prayer and oil were 
used for the recovery of the sick. 

As with the Friends, ' marrying out of the Society ' was strictly forbidden, and 
was followed by excommunication. The amusements of Church members were 
carefully supervised. The old records give numerous instances of discipline for 
card-playing, dancing, cock-tighting and playing at foot-ball. A 'flounting apparel' 
was condemned, and what is now known as the Quaker costume was worn by the 
Baptists, and borrowed by the Friends. Some matters in domestic life, as between 
husbands and wives, servants and masters, were subjects of discipline. Borrowing 
and lending, 'idleness in their calling,' ' covetousness,' 'lying and slandering,' 'obsti- 
nacy of temper,' 'negligence and extravagance,' came under disciplinary offenses. 

They also fell into other customs of doubtful Bible authority. We learn 
from several sources that it was not uncommon to choose deacons and even 
pastors by the casting of lots. The Warboys Church elected both a deacon and 
elder in this way in the year 1647. But a more curious instance occurred in 1682, 
when Bampfield and his people wished to select a site for a chapel. They could not 
agree which to take out of three places. Therefore they laid aside their own pru- 
dential determinings, and after they had sought the Lord to choose for them, did 
refer the determining of it wholly unto him. Lots were prepared, one for each 
place, 'and that they might not limit the sovereign will of the All- wise, a fourth 
blank. -Having agreed upon one to draw the lot, they all looked up to the God 
of heaven, expecting his allotment. The lot, being opened, spoke Pinner's Hall.' 
This custom was common amongst various Puritan sects in the seventeenth century. 

Many of the Churches observed love-feasts before the Lord's Supper, but as 
this early practice was not held to be obligatory and perpetual, it never became 
general, nor was it recognized in their Confessions. But great stress was laid upon 
the care of the poor in the Churches, and for this there was especial need in conse- 
quence of persecution. Heavy fines and long imprisonments despoiled their sub- 
stance, tore husbands and wives apart, and brought starvation to their children, 
besides disinheriting them for their father's religious views when he was dead. 
This drove them to consider themselves as one great family, in which the strong 
should help the weak, and created a sort of voluntary communism amongst them. 
It was a standing rule in some Churches for each member to make his contribution 
to the treasury every Sunday, and so by plainness and economy each lived for the 
other, and in times of calamity all gave a willing response to the needy. 

Ministerial clubs became a curious feature amongst the Baptists. One, composed 
of Calvinistic ministers, was organized as early as 1714, and met weekly at a London 



218 



MINISTERIAL CLUBS. 



coffee-house. The rent of a room in which one club had been held was four guineas 
a year, but it was raised sixteen shillings ' in consideration of the rise of tobacco,' a 
side-light on the doings of the club. Their weekly meetings were more than social 
gatherings, for they carried through so many local plans that at one time there was 
danger that one club would arrogate to itself and exercise the authority of a synod 
of elders. Country Churches, seeking pecuniary aid, must first appeal to this club 
for its sanction. It gave advice concerning the establishment of new Churches 
and the relations of pastors to their flocks, settled Church difficulties, kept close 
watch over the lives and opinions of its own members, and exclusions were frequent 
for heresy and ill-conduct. The London Baptist Board is the lineal descendant and 
survivor of one of these clubs, though the character of its meetings and the nature 
of its functions are so changed as scarcely to be recognizable. 

The Six-Principle Baptists established a General Assembly in March, 1690, but 
part of them dissented from all the Confessions of their brethren, as savoring of 
human creeds. Some of them were Calvinistic and some Arminian, but all accepted 
and laid special stress upon the 
six principles enumerated in Heb. 
vi, 1, 2 ; namely, Repentance, 
faith, baptism, the laying on of 
hands, the resurrection of the 
dead, and eternal life. John Grif- 
feth was their principal writer, 
and many of the Welsh Churches 
practiced the laying on of hands 
in receiving members. At their 
best estate they numbered but 
eleven Churches in England, 
which gradually united with the 
other Baptists, and vanished as a 
distinct people. A few of them, 
however, are still found in Rhode 
Island. 

Abraham Booth wielded 
great influence amongst the Bap- 
tists at this time. He was born 
in Derbyshire, 1734, and at twenty-one united with the General Baptists, and soon 
became pastor of a Church at Kirby-Woodhouse. His doctrinal views were stoutly 
Arminian, and he wrote a ' Poem on Absolute Predestination,' in which he handled 
the doctrines of Calvinism with such great severity as to excite doubt in his own 
mind; so that, on a fuller investigation, he 'renounced ' his poem as 'detestable' in 
his own sight. He wrote his most able work on ' The Reign of Grace,' and sub' 




ABRAHAM BOOTH. 



THE IRISH BAPTTST8. 



219 



mitted it to the saintly "Venn, who not only persuaded him to publish it, but took 
enough copies of it himself to pay for the printing. It passed through many editions, 
and made its author famous. He left the General Baptists about 1765, and became 
pastor of the Little Prescott Street, Particular Baptist Church, London, where he 
remained for thirty-seven years. Here he was very active and useful, being the 
author of eight distinct works, amongst them his ' Pedobaptism Examined,' which is 
characterized by great research, and has never been fairly answered. He had much 
to do with founding Stepney College ; and for his candor, purity and consecration 
to Christ became one of the brightest 'lights in London. He died in 1806, in his 
seventy-third year. 

A few words about The Ikish Baptists may properly close this chapter. We 
have already seen that, in the introduction of Christianity, Ireland abounded in those 
large baptismal occasions wherein many thousands were baptized in a day. For 
hundreds of years this practice was continued, as Irish ecclesiastical history shows, 
and as is attested by the ruins of several elaborate baptisteries still extant, amongst 
which is that of Mellifont, given below. 

In the early Middle Ages the Irish Christians were amongst the first scholars 
in Europe, but the Danish and English conquests reduced that fair land to gross 
ignorance. It was then, as now, largely Catholic, but Protestantism grew under 
Henry and Edward, his son. Mary attempted to frustrate it by persecution but 

Elizabeth protected it, and 
under James I. the province 
of Ulster was filled with col- 
onists from Scotland, who 
laid the foundations of Irish 
Presbyterianism. Under the 
treacheiy of Charles I., who 
hoped for the support of 
Catholics, the vile insurrection 
of Catholics and massacre of 
Protestants took place in 1611. 
As the strength of Cromwell's 
army consisted of Baptists and 
Independents ; when he over- 
ran Ireland, 1619, Baptists 
abounded in his forces, and they organized Churches as opportunity served. It is re- 
ported by Thomas Harrison, in writing to Thurloe, 1655, that there were twelve gov- 
ernors of towns and cities who were Baptists, with ten colonels, three or four lieu- 
tenant-colonels, ten majors, nineteen or twenty captains, and twenty -three officers, 
on the civil list. Fleetwood, the governor, Colonel Jones and a majority of the 
Council which governed Ireland, are said to have been Baptists. Both the Inde- 




EU1NS OF MELI.IFONT BAPTISTERY. 



220 ALEXANDER CARSON. 

pendents and the Presbyterians complained of their preponderance in official places, 
and Richard Baxter bluntly said, 'In Ireland the Anabaptists are grown so high 
that many of the soldiers were rebaptized as the way to preferment.' 

Probably the first Irish Baptist Church since the Reformation was formed in 
Dublin by Thomas Patience, assistant pastor to Kiffin in London. The date is not 
clear, but in 1653 a Church was found there, with others in Waterford, Clonmel, 
Kilkenny, Cork, Limerick, Wexford, Carrickfergus and Kerry. It is most likely 
that these were largely English, and their republican principles were so stanch 
that they opposed Cromwell's Lord Protectorate, and he sent over his son, Henry, 
to watch and influence them. After the Restoration, 1660, their feeble Churches 
began to decline, though a few of them continued ; and after a hard struggle, we 
have but 23 Churches and 1,639 communicants in Ireland at this day. They 
deserved to decline, for, as they came in with the conquering army, they so far 
forgot their principles as to accept State pay with the Independents and Presby- 
terians. Their course was severely condemned by the Welsh and English Baptists 
as a sacrifice of their principles, but in 1660, by a special inquiry, they were deprived 
of this State support, to the gratitude of their British brethren. 

The most illustrious of the Irish Baptists is Dr. Alexander Carson. Born in 
the north of Ireland in 1776, he became, perhaps, the first scholar in the University 
of Glasgow, and settled, as a Presbyterian pastor, at Tubbermore, 1798, where he 
received £100 per year from the government. He was a Greek scholar of the first 
order, and might have become Professor of Greek in the University of Glasgow on 
signing the ' Standards ' of the Church of Scotland. Bnt he gradually adopted Bap- 
tist views, gave up his living, and gathered a little band of Baptists about him in a 
Church without a meeting-house, and, with himself, enduring deep poverty. In 
his day he was probably the leading scholar in the Baptist ranks in Britain, and 
was a voluminous writer and profound reasoner. His work on Baptism has no 
superior and few equals. Some have called him the 'Jonathan Edwards of Ireland,' 
and with reason ; for it is doubtful whether Ireland has produced his equal since the 
death of Archbishop Usher. He died in 1844, after nearly half a century spent in 
the ministry ; but his name is fragrant wherever his works are known. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE SCOTCH AND ENGLISH BAPTISTS.— MISSIONS.— MEN OF NOTE. 

THERE are distinct pre-Reformation traces of Baptist principles and practices 
in Scotland. Councils were held at Perth in the years 1242 and 1296, the 
canons of which require that in baptism, ' Before the immersion the aforesaid words 
should be pronounced.' 1 In Holyrood Chapel was a brazen font in which the 
children of the Scotch monarchs were ' dipped,' which was removed by the English 
in 1544, and destroyed in the time of Cromwell. 2 The 'Edinburgh Encyclopaedia' 
states, that sprinkling was never practiced in Scotland in ordinary cases till 1559, 
when it was introduced from Geneva. 3 Many of Cromwell's army, which went to 
Scotland in 1650 under command of Monk, were Baptists, who kept up religious 
worship in their camps and immersed the converted soldiers. When Monk left the 
army, in the beginning of 1653, to command the fleet against the Dutch, he left 
Major-General Robert Lilburn in command of the troops in Scotland. Monk had 
been opposed to the Baptists, but Lilburn, being a stout Baptist himself, afforded 
his soldiery every facility for the spread of their principles. He was anxious to 
employ Baptist chaplains, for he said that there ' were divers honest Scotch people 
that longed to be gathered into the same gospel order with themselves.' When 
some of the troops were garrisoned at Leith and Edinburgh, they formed Baptist 
Churches ; and we are told that many persons were immersed in the water of Leith, 
which passes Edinburgh on the north and falls into the Frith of Forth at the town 
of Leith. Amongst these was Lady Wallace of Craigie. Troops were stationed also 
at Cupar in Fife, where a Mr. Brown preached, and immersed several persons in 
the river Eden. In 1653 the fourth edition of the Confession of Faith, framed by 
the London Churches, was published in Edinburgh. It was accompanied by a 
Preface, signed by Thomas Spencer, Abraham Holmes, Thomas Powell and John 
Brady, by appointment of the Churches in Leith and Edinburgh. The army 
remained in Scotland from 1650 to 1659, but Lilburn was in command only about a 
year, when Monk resumed command. 4 

Baptist principles spread so rapidly in Scotland, that Presbyterians became 
alarmed, and at a meeting held in Edinburgh, October 1651, some of the elders 
expressed the opinion that children should not receive baptism until they made 
confession of faith. Some ministers also were complained of, as Alexander Cornnell, 
of Linlithgow, and Thomas Charteris, of Stenhouse, because they 'baptized old 
people, maintained Anabaptism and would not baptize infants.' 5 Whitlock writes, 



222 CROMWELL AND THE BAPTISTS. 

that, in 1652, Parliament issued a declaration against the Scotch Dippers ; and in 
1653, George Fox complains of the firm resistance which he met from the Baptists 
of Carlisle, Leith and ' Edenbro,' but claims a great victory over them. 6 Thomas 
Stackhouse, of Hexham, England, was sent to aid the infant churches, who were 
bitterly persecuted ; for on January 24th, 1654, they presented to Monk, the ' com- 
mander-in-chief of all the forces in Scotland,' ' The humble address of the bap- 
tized Churches, consisting of officers, soldiers and others, walking together in gospel 
order, at St. Johnston's, Leith and Edinburgh, for toleration or freedom quietly 
to worship God ; which freedom we conceive is a fruit of the purchase of our 
dear Eedeemer.' But when Heath reached Leith, in 1659, he shut up Colonel 
Holmes and all the other Baptist officers there, first in Tantallan Castle and then 
on Bass Rock. The fact that Baptists had become so numerous, both in the army 
and navy, and were taking such high ground against the assumptions of Cromwell, 
excited the fear of the rulers that they would rise, seize the government and pro- 
claim freedom of conscience for all. Guizot writes : ' The king's interest is also 
supported by the Presbyterians, although they are republicans in principle ; and it 
is only the fear that the Anabaptists and other sectaries may obtain the government, 
which leads them to oppose the present authorities.' 7 

Baptist opposition to Cromwell's aggressions cost him much trouble, and, broad 
as he was, he began to persecute them, as is clearly shown in a letter sent to him 
and preserved by Thurloe, his secretary, which puts some very troublesome questions 
to him. After saying that Baptists had ' filled' his 'towns, cities, provinces, castles, 
navies, tents and armies,' the writer asks him whether, ' 1. Yon had come to that 
height you are now in if the Anabaptists had been as much your enemies as they 
were your friends ? 2. Whether the Anabaptists were ever unfaithful either to the 
Commonwealth, etc., in general, or to your highness in particular? 3. Whether 
Anabaptists are not to be commended for their integrity, which had rather kept 
good faith and a good conscience, although it may lose them their employment, than 
to keep their employment with the loss of both ? ' Then the writer asks : ' Whether 
one hundred of the old Anabaptists, such as marched under your command in 1648, 
1649, and 1650, etc., be not as good as two hundred of your new courtiers, if you 
were in such a condition as you were at Dunbar?' This last allusion is to the battle 
which Cromwell won near Edinburgh, with ten thousand troops, many of whom 
were Baptists, over thirty thousand Scotch soldiers. 8 All record of Baptists, how- 
ever, in Scotland, is lost, from 1660 to something beyond 1700. Sir William 
Sinclair, of Keiss, Caithness, was immersed in England, and returned to Scotland to 
preach there ; he immersed his candidates, and formed a Baptist Church upon hia 
own estate, but suffered much. 9 The Baptist Church at Keiss was formed about 
1750, and is now the oldest in Scotland. 

The next, in point of aare, is the Bristo Place Church, Edinburgh, which came 
into existence on this wise : Rev. Robert Carmichael, who had been pastor of an 



Mclean, eobert haldane. 223 

Anti-burgher body at Coupar-Angus, and of an Independent Church in Edinburgh, 
came to reject infant baptism, and went to London, where he was immersed by Dr. 
Gill, October 9th, 1765. On returning to Edinburgh, he baptized five members of 
his former Church, and formed a Baptist Church, which met in St. Cecilia's Hall, 
Xiddry Street. Archibald McLean, had been a member of Carmichael's Church in 
Glasgow, and came to Edinburgh, where he was also baptized. He organized what 
is now the John Street Baptist Church in Glasgow, baptizing its first members in 
the Clyde, near Glasgow Green. In about a year, McLean became colleague to 
Carmichael, who removed to Dundee in 1769, when McLean was left as pastor 
proper, with Dr. Robert Walker, a well-known surgeon, as joint elder. McLean 
was born at East Kilbride, 1733, but early in life resided in the Island of Mull, 
where he acquired the Gaelic language. At school he became a fair Latin scholar, 
and afterward studied Greek and Hebrew. When young, he heard Whitefield 
preach and was largely influenced thereby. In 1716, he became a successful 
printer at Glasgow, where he remained till 1767, when he removed to Edin- 
burgh. While pastor in Edinburgh he wrote much ; as, a work on Christ's 
Commission, a ' Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews,' and a ' Iieview 
of Wardlaw's Abrahamic Covenant.' His works were collected and published 
in seven volumes, 1805 ; he died December 21st, 1812, at the age of about eighty, 
his life having been wonderfully blessed of God. Although he was not the first 
Baptist in Scotland, in point of time, yet his labors and writings exerted so much 
influence, that in this respect he may be called the founder of Baptists there. 

Robert Haldane was born in London, 1761, being a babe there when Gill 
baptized Carmichael. He studied at the High School and University of Edinburgh 
and removed to Airthrey in 1786, where he inherited a large estate. He became a 
great writer and philanthropist, giving $350,000 for charitable purposes within 
fifteen years, and during his life educating three hundred ministers of the Gospel 
at an expense of $100,000. Amongst these was Dr. Bogue, of Gosport, and Mr. 
Ewing, of Glasgow. At Geneva he lectured to the students on the Epistle to the 
Romans, who, with D'Aubigne, Malan, and Gaussen, were delighted listeners. He 
published his 'Exposition of Romans,' also his 'Evidence and Authority of Rev- 
elation,' and his work on ' The Inspiration of Scripture.' He died in Edinburgh 
in 1812. 

James Alexander Haldane, his brother, was born at Dundee, 1768. He 
entered the navy, as Robert had also. But early in life he became a devout Chris- 
tian, and traveled all through Scotland and the Orkney Islands, preaching to great 
multitudes. In 1799 he was ordained pastor of an Independent congregation in 
Edinburgh, where he labored for nearly fifty years, with great success. His 
brother, Robert, built for him a large Tabernacle in 1801, and in 1808 the brothers 
became Baptists. Wilsou gives an interesting account of their conversion. After 
speaking of their 'zeal in behalf of primitive Christianity,' and of the erection by 



224 



JAMES ALEXANDER HALDANE. 



them of many 'meeting-houses of large dimensions,' he relates that several persons 
from Scotland, in connection with them, settled in London, 1806, and formed a 
Church in Cateaton Street. William Ballantine, formerly of the University of Edin- 
burgh, a man of good classical and theological attainments, was their leader. He says 
that 'the Messrs. Haldane, and the societies in their connection, were hitherto Pedo- 
baptist.' ' But after about two 
years . . . several persons, suspect- 
ing that they were in an error upon 
this point, began to study the con- 
troversy, were convinced of their 
mistake, and received baptism by 
immersion. This put the Messrs. 
Haldane themelves upon an ex- 
amination of the subject, and the 
result was that they also became 
convinced, and were baptized, 
though at some interval from 
each other. The report of these 
changes reaching London, Mr. 
Ballantine was necessarily put 
upon a more careful examination 
of the subject, and the result was 
that he also renounced his former 
sentiments, and was baptized by 
immersion. But this occasioned 
a convulsion in the society. Mr. 
Ballantine relinquished his sta- 
tion and joined the Scotch Bap- 
tists in Redcross Street. . . . Most of the members of this Church gradually 
renounced their former notions, and, we believe, they are now (1808) entirely 
Baptists. But they allow of mixed communion, and in this respect differ from all 
the other Particular Baptist Churches of London.' 10 . 

During the first half of the present century Rev. Christopher Anderson was 
the foremost man among the Baptists of Scotland. He was a native of Edinburgh, 
born in 1782. He was converted in 1799, under the ministry of the Rev. James 
Haldane, when he was still a Congregationalism Intercourse with English Baptist 
students at the University reawakened his interest in the subject of baptism. He 
had previously held that believers only should be baptized, but, not agreeing with 
the Scotch Baptists in their views of the ministry and church government, had not 
regarded the matter as a personal duty. He was immersed by one of the English 
students, and was promptly excluded from Mr. Haldane's Church. A few years after 




JAMES ALEXANDER HALDANE. 



CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON. 225 

this Mr. Haldane himself, and his distinguished brother, Robert, committed the same 
offense and became Baptists. A visit of Andrew Fuller to Edinburgh awakened 
a desire in young Anderson to give himself to the work of the ministry amongst the 
heathen, and Mr. Fuller encouraged him. He entered the University of Edinburgh, 
and subsequently continued his studies with Rev. John Sutcliff, of Olney, one of the 
founders of the Baptist Missionary Society, and the originator of the Monthly Con- 
cert of Prayer for Missions. Much to the disappointment of Mr. Anderson, he 
found that his feeble health would not permit him to live in India. His great 
ability as a preacher had been already recognized, and he declined numerous calls 
from London and other cities, that he might found a regular Baptist Church in his 
native city. He began his work in 1806, and in a few years his Church had bought 
a spacious house of worship, which was thronged with worshipers for more than 
thirty years, the doors being generally besieged long before the hour of opening. 
Rev. Dr. Cheever, who visited Scotland in 1840, gave some vivid sketches of his 
character and discourses in letters to the 'New York Observer,' which he concluded 
by saying : ' Mr. Anderson is one of the most interesting expository preachers I ever 
heard. His sermons are most simple, affectionate, conversational, but rich with 
thought and Christian feeling, and dropped from the lips of the preacher like the 
droppings of a full honey-comb.' 

Mr. Anderson was the intimate and confidential friend of Andrew Fuller, and 
the chief helper in Scotland to the support of Carey, Marsh man and Ward in India. 
After Fuller's death, and the unfortunate disagreement between the Serampore 
brethren and the Missionary Society, he succeeded Fuller, serving gratuitously as 
secretary of the Serampore Mission until the reunion, a period of twenty years. He 
was the leader in the Home Mission work in the north of Scotland and in Ireland, 
especially in the work of giving the Bible in the original native dialect. Abun- 
dant as were his pulpit and other labors, he was a diligent student and an author of 
great distinction. His work on ' The Domestic Constitution ; or, The Family Circle 
the Source of National Stability,' had a wide circulation in Europe, and several 
editions of it have appeared in America. But the crowning work of his life was 
' The Annals of the English Bible.' It cost him fourteen years of toil, involving 
repeated journeys to the Continent, and to the homes of Tyndale and Coverdale in 
England, in order that the work might be trustworthy in the utmost degree. The 
story of the suffering fathers, who sought to give the people the word of God in 
their mother-tongue, is simply and eloquently told, and the work is a monument of 
erudition. Mr. Anderson was one of the most popular of Scottish preachers, rank- 
ing with Wardlaw, Chalmers, Guthrie and Candlish, until his voice became impaired 
by sickness. His Church was called an English Baptist Church, to distinguish it 
from those Churches which had a plurality of elders. It was composed entirely of 
believers immersed upon confession of Christ, and practiced restricted communion. 
Mr. Anderson died in 1852. His funeral sermon was preached by his friend for 



226 



ALEXANDER MACLAREN. 



more than fifty years, Dr. "Wardlaw, of Glasgow. Dr. Cheever says of him : ' Mr. 
Anderson's conversation in private was in the same interesting familiar, rich and 
instructive style as his preaching in public. Altogether he was one of the most 
heavenly minded and delightful men with whom I became acquainted in Great 
Britain.' 

The Baptists have never been numerous in Scotland, but at this time they num- 
ber 96 churches, 10,905 communicants and 86 pastors. They flourish chiefly in Edin- 
burgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee. They are decidedly Calvinistic, are marked 
for the purity of their lives and their great missionary zeal. Their Church organiza- 
tions are purely Congregational, with a plurality of elders in some churches. They 
observe the Supper weekly, but have been somewhat divided as to whether it should 
be administered when a minister is not present. In discipline they are very strict, 
use great plainness of apparel, and aim honestly in all things to keep the apostolic 
injunction to the letter : ' Stand 
fast in the faith.' In view of their 
warm discussions and many divi- 
sions on minor subjects, the ques- 
tion will fairly arise in inquiring 
minds, whether or not they under- 
stand as well the secret of keeping 
' the unity of the Spirit in the 
bonds of peace.' Past divisions 
have been the fruitful source of 
their present weakness, but gener- 
ally they have now adopted a wiser 
course in this respect, and their 
prospects are much more inviting 
for the future. Their minstry has 
been marked by many men of rare 
ability, notably amongst them the 
late Dr. James Paterson, for forty- 
six years pastor of the Hope Street 
Church, in Glasgow ; Dr. Landels, 
late of London, now of Edinburgh ; 
and Dr. Culross, President of the 
Baptist College, Bristol, England. 

Alexander Maclaren, D.D., the present pastor of the Union Chapel, Manches- 
ter, is probably the most powerful pulpit orator that the Baptists of Scotland have 
ever produced. He was born in Glasgow in 1825, where his father was long the 
pastor of a Baptist Church. At fifteen Alexander was baptized by Dr. Paterson, and 
when little more than sixteen he entered Stepney as a student for the ministry. So 




REV. DR. ALEXANDER MACLAREN. 



THOMAS SPENCER BATNES. 227 

thorough was his course that at its close he took his bachelor's degree at the London 
University with the prize for proficiency in the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures. He 
is a great and original thinker, who bows in the utmost veneration before the inspired 
word, and breathes its atmosphere. His imagination kindles much after the order 
of the Hebrew prophets ; he holds his subject with the ease and grip of a giant ; his 
voice is flexible and full of sympathy ; his gesticulation is abundant and impressive, 
though often ungraceful ; and his love for Christ melts his whole soul. He is 
nervous, abstracted, self-sacrificing, a model of rich, ornate transparency ; and many 
who are pulpit masters themselves rank him without hesitation as the first preacher 
in Great Britain after the intellectual order. He has filled but two pastorates, that 
of Portland Place, Southampton, and his present charge in Manchester. The hon- 
orary degree of D.D. was conferred upon him by the University of Edinburgh, 1878; 
and lately he declined the Hebrew lectureship at Regent's Park College. 

Our Scotch brethren are not wanting in distinguished laymen who honor their 
Churches. Thomas Spencer Baynes, LL.D., stands notably amongst them. He ia 
Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of St. Andrews, and the son 
of a noted Baptist minister of Somersetshire, England. He was born in 1823, con- 
verted early in life, and became a student in Bristol College with a view to entering 
the ministry, obtaining the Ward Scholarship in the Edinburgh University. This is 
a prize of £100 per annum for three years for Baptist students. It has proved of 
great service, Dr. Angus, Rev. C. M. Birrell and others having obtained this honor. 
He was connected in Edinburgh with Christopher Anderson's Church, and fre- 
quently supplied the pulpit while his pastor was preparing his 'Annals of the 
English Bible.' When in the University his extraordinary, not to say phenomenal, 
ability and scholarship attracted the attention of the faculty, especially of Professor 
John Wilson, otherwise known as ' Christopher North,' and Sir William Hamilton. 
He was elected assistant to Sir William Hamilton, serving with popularity and distinc- 
tion from 1S±9 to 1855. During this time he filled many Baptist pulpits as occa- 
sional and stated supply, and was a most attractive preacher. In the year 1851 lie 
translated the ' Port Royal Logic,' adding copious notes. This work was republished 
in America by Lamport & Co. In 1S52 he published an 'Essay on the New 
Analytic of Logical Forms, with Notes and Historical Appendix.' This is an 
exposition of the system of Sir William Hamilton. In 1857 he was appointed 
assistant editor of the London ' Daily News,' in which position he remained for 
seven years. His articles on the American Civil War attracted great admiration. 
During this time he was also Examiner in Logic and Mental Philosophy in the 
University of London, and was constantly engaged in delivering lectures on his 
favorite studies before colleges and other public institutions. 

In 186-i he was elected to his present position in the University of St. 
Andrews. He is a constant contributor to the 'Edinburgh Review,' ' Fraser's 
Magazine ' and the ' Saturday Review,' and has been for ten years past the editor of 



WILLIAM CARET. 



the last edition of the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,' now in process of publication. 
His honorary degree of doctor of laws was conferred by the University of Edin- 
burgh. 

The English Baptists were greatly reduced in numbers by certain undermin- 
ing influences in the early part of the eighteenth century, but since then the current 
has greatly changed, and they are now stimulated with new life. Andrew Fuller's 
' Gospel "Worthy of all Acceptation ' has had much to do in awakening this zeal. 
This treatise was aimed directly against that hyper-Calvinism which denies all duty 
to God in the unregenerate, and refuses to call them to repentance and Christ. 
Fuller's book kept him in warm controversy for twenty years, but moderate Calvin- 
ism triumphed completely, and was followed by an awakening of the missionary 
spirit, chiefly under the labors of William Carey and Andrew Fuller. The first 
Baptist movement in foreign missions was made at a meeting of the Northampton 
Association in 1784. 

William Carey was born August 17th, 1761, at Paulersbury. His father was 
a weaver. (a descendant of James Carey, curate of that parish from 1621 to 1630), 
also parish clerk and village 
school-master, so that William 
had a fair common-school educa- 
tion. At fourteen he was bound 
an apprentice to a shoe-maker, 
but his thirst for knowledge 
was so quenchless that he habit- 
ually worked with a book before 
him. Finding many Greek 
words which he could not 
understand, in a Commentary, 
he sought help of Tom Jones, 
a weaver, who had abused a 
classical education. He became 
familiar with the works of 
Jeremy Taylor and such other 
authors as he could command ; 
and Thomas Scott, the com- 
mentator, predicted that this 
'plodder' would prove no ordi- 
nary man. William Manning, 

a Dissenter, his shopmate, led him to Christ, and at twenty-two he was immersed in 
the river New, near Dr. Doddridge's chapel, Northampton, by John Ryland, Jr. 
The baptism of a poor journeyman shoe-maker excited little interest, but Ryland 
chanced on a prophetic text that day : ' The last shall be first.' Carey's chief 




WILLIAM CARET, D.D. 






CAREY'S STUDIES. 229 

desire, after his conversion, was to qualify himself for usefulness, and his remark- 
able gift for acquiring languages soon made him master of the Latin, Greek, 
Hebrew, German and French. He began to keep school, but could not govern ; 
he said, ' The boys kept me,' and so he did not succeed well. Soon he removed to 
Moulton, and, under the advice of Mr. Sutcliff, applied to the Church at Olney for 
admission to the ministry. That high and mighty body condescended to take him 
into its membership, and, on hearing him preach, ' Resolved ' that he be ' allowed ' 
to preach elsewhere in small places, and that ' he should engage again on suitable 
occasions for some time before us, in order that further trial be made of his minis- 
terial gifts.' 

A year after this, June 16th, 1785, 'the case of Brother Carey was considered, 
and unanimous satisfaction with his ministerial abilities being expressed, a vote was 
passed to call him to the ministry at a proper time? 'Call,' as here used, would 
mean license with us, and as the brother rather grew upon them, they licensed him 
to preach August 10th ' wherever the providence of God might open his way.' 
That way was opened first at Moulton, where lie became pastor, working at his trade 
to prevent starvation, the Church being able ' to raise enough to pay for the clothes 
worn-out in their service.' While teaching school, he reveled in Cook's 'Voyages 
Around the World,' and closely studied geography. He made a globe of leather, and 
traced the outlines of the earth upon it for his classes. Then the thought flashed 
upon him that four hundred millions of people had never heard of Christ, and that 
moment, surrounded by a handful of Northamptonshire urchins, with his eye on that 
russet globe, the great Baptist missionary enterprise was born. As is generally the 
case with Churches who pay their ministers next to nothing, certain cantankerous 
members made him much trouble. The records of the Church say that one sister 
' neglected coming to hear,' and was excluded. Old Madame Britain was charged 
with ' excessive passion, tattling and tale-bearing, by which the peace of the Church 
was much broken.' They 'suspended and admonished her' to keep the unruly 
member under better subjection, and seem at last to have saved her, tongue and all. 
John and Ann Law kept the ' Workhouse,' and were charged with ' cruelty to the 
poor,' a charge found ' too true.' They were advised to resign their office, and were 
'suspended till they do so.' 

Carey removed to Leicester, where he served as pastor and predecessor to 
Robert Hall. There he determined to do something for the heathen and wrote on 
the subject. His ' Inquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use means for the 
Conversion of the Heathen ' was published in 1792, but found few readers and pro- 
duced little effect. To most of the Baptists his views were visionary and even wild, 
in open conflict with God's sovereignty. At a meeting of ministers, where the 
senior Byland presided, Carey proposed that at the next meeting they discuss the 
duty of attempting to spread the Gospel amongst the heathen. Fuller was present, 
but the audacity of the proposition made him hold his breath, while Ryland, shocked, 

17 



230 CARET'S GREAT SERMON. 

sprang to his feet and ordered Carey to sit down, saying : ! When God pleases to 
convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid or mine ! ' Nothing daunted, 
Carey continued to preach in Harvey Lane, Leicester, to teach school, work on the 
bench, and pursue his studies. He gave Monday to languages, Tuesday to science 
and history, Wednesday to lecturing, Thursday to visiting, Friday and Saturday to 
preparation for the pulpit, and on Sunday he preached three times. At this period 
Dr. Arnold gave him the use of his superior library. What By land called the ' An- 
tinomian Devil' made such havoc of his Church, however, that he was obliged to 
dissolve it and form a new one of better materials. Soon he was cheered on finding 
that Fuller, Sutcliff, Pearce and young Ryland held his views on foreign missions, 
although Stennett and Booth stood aloof. At the October meeting of ministers, 
1791, Sutcliff preached on being ' Very jealous for the Lord of Hosts,' and Fuller 
on the ' Pernicious Influences of Delay,' when the meeting resolved that ' something 
should be done.' 

The Association met at Nottingham, May 31st, 1792, when Carey preached his 
great sermon from Isa. liv, 2, 3 ; representing the Church as a poor widow living in 
a cottage by herself. The voice, ' Thy Maker is thy Husband,' told her to look for 
an increase of family ; therefore, she must enlarge her tent, and ' expect great things 
from God, and attempt great things for God.' This appeal settled the question. 
The Churches were seized with a sense of criminal neglect ; but even then they were 
about to adjourn without doing any thing but weep, when Carey seizing Fuller's hand, 
demanded that the first step be taken on the spot. His heart was breaking, and his 
sobs compelled the assembly to stop. It was resolved, ' That a plan be prepared 
against the next ministers' meeting at Kettering, for the establishment of a society 
for propagating the Gospel among the heathen.' Such a meeting was held October 
2d, 1792, and at its close twelve men met in the parlor of Mrs. Wallis, a widow, and 
formed the first Baptist Missionary Society. Andrew Fuller was made Secretary, 
Reynold Hogg, Treasurer ; with Ryland, Sutcliff, Carey and afterward Pearce, as 
the Committee of management. They then made a subscription out of their penury 
of £13 2s. 6d. Pearce preached on the subject at home, and soon sent 'the surprising 
sum of £70 to the Society.' 

In April, 1793, Carey and Thomas started for India, despite the opposition of 
the East India Company, the indifference of their own brethren, and the disdain of 
the public ; and did such missionary work there as has not been known since the 
Apostolic Age. 

For years, however, it was doubtful whether the mission would not result in 
disastrous failure. The Anglo-Indian government would not allow it to be estab- 
lished in their territory, and the missionaries found shelter in Serampore, under the 
Danish governor. Here Carey printed the New Testament in Bengali, the first 
translation into a heathen tongue in modern times. Dr. Thomas, Carey's fellow- 
laborer, had given surgical attention to Krishna Pal, and in December, 1800, 



CAREY'S LITERARY LABORS. . 23 1 

Dr. Carey immersed this native, together with his own son, Felix, in the Ganges, in 
the presence of a great multitude ; soon after a second son was baptized. This 
faithful Hindu is the only converted heathen who has added an inspiring hymn to 
the songs of Christendom. He wrote the lines beginning with : 

O thou, my soul, forget no more.' 

In his conversion we have the first-fruits of the great Indian harvest which has fol- 
lowed. Since then, Christianity has wrought wonders in India, in the abolition of 
superstitious rites, the decline of caste and the elevation of morals. 

Carey did not long engage in the active work of an evangelist. His support 
was light, he must master the Eastern languages, and for a time he earned his daily 
bread in an indigo factory. But when the Marquis of Wellesley founded a college 
at Fort William, in 1801, he found no man in India so fitted to fill the chair of 
Oriental languages as this despised missionary, who had been driven for refuge under 
an alien flag. He offered the post to Carey, it was accepted, and he became the 
leader of his age in Oriental literature and philosophy. He prepared grammars and 
lexicons in the Mahratta, Sanskrit, Punjabi, Telinga, Bengali and Bhotanta dialects. 
Wellesley pronounced his Sanskrit Grammar 'the source and root of the principal 
dialects throughout India.' He translated no fewer than twenty-four different ver- 
sions of the Scriptures, with little aid from others, into the tongues spoken by one 
third of our race. This was practically new work, the execution of which has en- 
abled the Max Mullers of our day to add completeness to first attempts, by ripe 
scholarship. A child learns now what only the intellect of a Kepler and a Newton 
discovered. Well did Wilberforce say of Carey : ' A sublimer thought cannot be 
conceived than when a poor cobbler formed the resolution to give to the millions of 
Hindus the Bible in their own language.' 

While Carey was quietly doing his work in India. Great Britain was kept in a 
ferment by war on the mission, which drew many of its ablest pens into the conflict, 
not only in the Reviews, but by the pamphlet and newspaper press. The ' Edinburgh 
Review' constantly ridiculed the mission, denouncing the missionaries as ' fools,' 
' madmen,' ' tinkers ' and ' cobblers ; ' and many public men sided with that periodical. 
But the ' Quarterly ' came to their defense, through noble men not Baptists, not the 
least amongst them being Dr. Adam Clark. In addition to much that the ' Quar- 
terly ' said was this : ' Only fourteen years have elapsed since Thomas and Carey set 
foot in India, and in that time have these missionaries acquired this gift of tongues. 
In fourteen years these " low-born and low-bred mechanics " have done more toward 
spreading the knowledge of the Scriptures among the heathen than has been accom- 
plished, or even attempted, by all the world besides.' Carey had constant struggles 
to maintain his health, but he had great consolation in his family, for his three sons 
were all converted and consecrated to the missionary work by baptism and the 
' laying on of his own hands.' But he was oppressed by sad trouble in England, in 



232 MAESHMAN AND WARD. 

what is now known as the ' Serampore Controversy.' "While in the employ of the 
British government he had received about £80,000, all of which he had devoted, 
beyond a bare subsistence, to the establishment of churches, schools and the support 
of his fellow missionaries. This was no shield, however, against the most fiery and 
and shameful attacks of some of his own brethren in England upon him and his 
work. In 1825 they rabidly accused the ' Serampore College ' of possessing im- 
mense wealth, of extravagant living and the assumption of unwarranted power. 
For a time, excitement and abuse ran wild, and men in high position condescended 
to disgrace themselves in these unfounded assaults. The result was that the College 
stood aloof from the Society from 1827 to 1837, during which time Carey fell asleep 
in Jesus ; for he died June 9th, 1831;, the greatest missionary since the Apostle Paul. 
His dust reposes in the mission grounds which his own toil had secured for Christ, 
and his missionary work never stood more firmly than to-day. 

Carey's two colleagues were to him what Luke and Barnabas were to Paul. 
Joshua Marshman received a common village education in Wiltshire, and was bred a 
weaver. By devotion to hard study he so improved his education that in 1794 he 
took charge of a school for the Broadmead Baptist Church at Bristol. Shortly 
afterward he was converted and baptized into that Church, and determined to 
become a missionary. He sailed for India in 1799, where he studied the Bengali 
and Sanskrit with such energy that his Oriental attainments were second only to 
those of Carey. For fifteen years he toiled over the first translation of the Bible 
into Chinese, and published it at the Serampore press. He also published a Chinese 
grammar and a translation of Confucius, and was joint editor with Carey of his San- 
skrit grammar and Bengali dictionary. He was a lovely spirit, and was drawn to 
that other Israelite in whom was no guile, Henry Martyn ; they often walked arm 
and arm together on the banks of the Hooghly, like brothers, longing to bless all 
about them. In 1811 Brown University conferred upon him the degree of Doctor 
of Divinity, and in 1837 he followed Carey to his rest. 

William Ward was Carey's second colleague. He was born at Derby, in 1769, 
and became a printer. While still a young man he rose to be editor of the ' Daily 
Mercury,' and subsequently of other papers in Stafford and Hull. At the latter 
place he was baptized, and soon began to study for the ministry ; but when the 
Missionary Society needed a printer, he went to Serampore, took a press with him, 
and printed Carey's Bengali New Testament. He was a scholar of no mean attain- 
ments, and his book on the life of the Hindus, published in 1811, was long the 
standard work on that subject. In 1819 he visited England and the United States, 
and returned to his field in 1821, carrying with him $10,000 which he had collected 
for the education of the native ministry in the Serampore College. Soon his health 
broke, and he died in 1823. 

Andrew Fuller was, however, the most important coadjutor of Carey. They 
had an understanding from the first, that while Carey ' went down into the well, 



ANDREW FULLER. 



233 



Fuller should hold the rope ; ' arid he held it firmly with a giant's grip, for he 
remained the secretary of the Society to the day of his death. Fuller was born 
in 1754; and while witnessing a baptism in 1770, was so deeply moved that 

he became a Christian, be- 
ing baptized at Soham into the 
Church of which he became 
pastor in 1775. He removed 
to Kettering in 1782, and be- 
came an eloquent, original and 
successful preacher, while in 
theology he was one of the 
lights and leaders of the world. 
He loved to see the Churches 
shake off the shackles of hyper- 
Calvinism, for he said, in his 
H strong language, that ' had mat- 
ters gone on but a few years the 
Baptists would have become a 
perfect dunghill in society.' 
In 1785 he published his great 
essay on the ' Gospel Worthy of 
all Acceptation,' which divided 
the stagnant waters, as would a 
blow from the rod of Moses. Immediately he was attacked on every side, and he 
followed in vigorous defense, as a profound thinker and a ready debater. His ' Cal- 
vinistic and Socinian Systems Examined and Compared,' and the ' Gospel its own 
Witness,' did much to bring about a reform, although the contest was severe indeed. 
His extraordinary power in controversy and exposition presented the truth in a new 
light. The most complicated questions opened themselves to his massive under- 
standing, and not only seeing them clearly himself, he possessed the power to make 
others see them. He had an unbiased judgment, an unconquerable resolution, a 
regal conscience, and a heart as tender as love could make any heart. Withal, he 
had a powerful body, great courage and rare sagacity. He put a new phase upon 
Calvinism, which has not only molded his own denomination, but has spread its 
leaven through all other Calvinistic bodies. Princeton and Yale both honored him 
with the doctorate, which, however he, declined. 

Carey appears to have first seen Fuller at an associational meeting at Olney, 
June, 1782, where he heard ' a round-headed, rustic-looking ' young minister preach 
' On being men in Understanding,' and heard him read a circular letter on ' The 
grace of Hope.' Carey had fasted all that day, .' because he had not a penny to buy 
his dinner,' but, though hungry, he seems to have relished Fuller's words mightily. 




ANDREW FULLER. 



234 HIS IMMORTAL WORK. 

Their intimacy began at a ministers' meeting in Northampton when Carey was un- 
expectedly called to preach. As he left the pulpit Fuller grasped his hand, and the 
two men, in understanding and in hope, became one for life. We have also an 
account of a visit which Fuller made to Carey's work-shop, where he saw a rude 
map of several sheets of paper pasted together, on which the lines of the nations 
were traced, hung upon the wall. This Carey studied while he plied the hammer, 
the lap-stone and the awl. After they had entered the mission work together, 
Fuller traversed Great Britain again and again as the champion of missions, and 
did more to keep the Churches alive to the subject than any half-dozen men in his 
times. For more than twenty years his holy integrity guided the Society through 
all its straits, including a fierce struggle with Parliament to keep India open to the 
Gospel, the chief bond that has held it to the scepter of its 'empress' to this day. 
Before he died (1815) he saw over seven hundred natives baptized, ten thousand 
heathen children educated in the schools, and translations of the Bible proceeding in 
twenty-seven languages, and he wrote to Carey : ' The spark which God stirred you 
up to strike has kindled a great fire ! ' The late Dr. "W". R. Williams expresses 
his conception of Fuller's might by denominating him a ' Shamgar,' ' entering the 
battle-field with but an ox-goad, against the mailed errorists of his island.' . . . ' The 
man who encountered him in argument generally bore the marks of a bludgeon 
from the encounter.' Pendergast, a member of Parliament, and a great duelist, 
demanded of Wilberforce who this Fuller was. He seemed to have stirred that 
body to its center in behalf of Indian missions, and this member would challenge 
him to a duel. ' Wilberforce smilingly assured him that he knew Fuller, but that 
he was not a man who would be moved to such a conference.' His missionary cor- 
respondence was extraordinary for its amount and character, and Legh Richmond 
said of his public papers that they seemed to him ' like specimens from the midst 
of heaven by the angel in his flight, with the Gospel in his hand.' He pleaded for 
missions as long as he could hold a pen, having written twelve hours a day as a 
common thing. On May 7th, 1815, he declared his work ended, and entered into 
the presence of his Lord at the age of sixty-one. 

The establishment of missions in India involved the translation of the 
Scriptures in the native tongues, and naturally this suggested the need of a society 
for Bible circulation. In 1804, the British and Foreign Bible Society was formed ; 
Joseph Hughes, a Baptist minister, bore a prominent part in that work. He was 
appointed one of its secretaries, and became, as it has been expressed, ' the hands 
and feet, as he had been the head of the institution.' Its Constitution provided 
that its ' sole object shall be to encourage a wider circulation of the Holy 
Scriptures without note or comment.' Baptists were large contributors to its 
treasury, in some cases, being specially urged to co-operate with the Society, instead 
of sending their money directly to India for the printing of the Scriptures ; and 
the missionaries cordially accepted invitations of co-operation also. In 1809 a 



BIBLE TRANSLATION IN INDIA. 233 

grant of £1,000 was made for the printing of Carey's Bengali ISTew Testament. 
From the beginning Baptist missionaries were faithful to the principle of translat- 
ing into the heathen languages, every word of the New Testament Greek, for 
which they could find equivalents. Common honesty required this, to say nothing 
of responsibility to God, and they made no concealment of their action, but widely 
avowed it in their official and printed letters. For many years the Bible Society 
found no fault with this rule of translation, but made numerous grants for the 
printing of these versions. In them, the Greek word baptizo was rendered by a 
native word which signified to immerse, because it could not in fidelity be translated 
otherwise. But -in 1835 the Fedobaptists in the Society affected a sudden discovery 
that the word baptizo was translated by a word signifying to immerse, and began a 
hot controversy at once on the subject. They accused the Baptists of obtaining 
money under false pretenses, and of concealing the true character of the versions 
which the Society had been openly circulating through India for twenty-six years! 
By this time the final revision of the Bengali Bible, by Drs. Yates and Pearce, waa 
ready for the press, but the Society refused to make any grant for its circulation, 
unless the missionaries would either transfer the Greek word, baptizo, as it is 
transferred in the common English version, or render it by some word that did not- 
mean to immerse. That is to say, they demanded that it should be rendered ' by 
such terms as may be considered unobjectionable by other denominations composing 
the Bible Society.' These requirements made the English version the standard by 
which translations should be made from the Greek, instead of faithfulness to the 
Greek sense; and it made the wishes of 'denominations' the test of translations, 
instead of fidelity to the mind of the Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible. 

Of course, this left the missionaries no choice of duty to God in the matter 
as translators. They must either leave the word untranslated, or mistranslate it, 
against their scholarship and conscience. The latter could not be thought of in any 
case, aud the former would have been cowardly and traitorous to the inspiring 
Spirit. The translation which they did make was the only one that they could 
make in the Bengali dialect. It had already been commended by the Home 
Society, its scholarly accuracy had been approved by the Calcutta Auxiliary Society ; 
and up to this time the Pedobaptist missionaries had followed the same rule of 
fidelity and used similar words in the Persian and Hindustani versions. The 
Baptists said, therefore : ' If it is now proposed to set aside the original principles of 
the- Society, and all its former work on the mission field, in order to gratify the 
denominational feelings of some in the Society, we will not listen to the proposition 
to sanction sectarian versions. The Greek original is not sectarian, and to give any 
version a different sense from that original, for the gratification of " denominations," 
is, to make a translation for sectarian ends, a thing that we cannot consent to do.' 
Reasonings, memorials and protests were made to the Society, but all to no effect. 
Accordingly, in order that the translators might do their work faithfully and 



236 



BAPTIST HISTORIANS. 



preserve their honor and self-respect, the Bible Translation Society was formed, 
March 21th, 1840. It has been in vigorous operation ever since, having printed and 
distributed 4,095,000 copies of the Scriptures, at a cost of $1,000,000. It is gratify- 
ing that the best scholarship has ever justified these translations, and at the 79th 
Anniversary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, Archbishop Benson took 
occasion 'to thank the committee very much for having put the word immerse in 
the margin of the translations. I must say that I think they were justified in this 
step ; and I do not doubt that this conciliation, based upon the real root ; meaning 
of the word, will have its effect.' The ' translations ' to which the archbishop refers 
are the Indian versions under the patronage of the above Society. 

The General Baptists, who had not co-operated as a body with the Baptist Mis- 
sionary Society formed in 1792, formed one of their own in 1816, its chief field being 
Orissa, India, amongst a population of 9,000,000, principally worshipers of Jugger- 
naut. This Society has done a blessed work. It maintains sixteen missionaries, twenty- 
two native preachers, and has nearly two thousand native converts in its churches. 

Activity in foreign missions naturally stimulated the Baptists to home mission 
work, and an Irish Mission Soci- 
ety was formed in 1814, and in 
1816 another for Scotland. Con- 
siderable home work has been 
done through these Societies, but 
a much larger amount through 
the Associations. Our English 
brethren have produced sev- 
eral able historians ; as Cros- 
by, Orchard, Mann, Robin- 
son, Evans, Stokes, Jones and 
Ivimey. Not having room to 
speak of them all, a word may 
be said of Joseph Ivimey, by no 
means the least in the list. He 
was born in Hampshire in 1773, 
and became pastor of the Eagle 
Street Church, London, in 1805. 
As a defender of the truth he 
was fearless, and won man} 7 souls 
to Christ, amongst whom was 

the late Dr. John Dowling, of New York. He baptized both his mother and father, 
the last at the age of seventy. His ' Life of Milton,' and ' History of the English 
Baptists ' (four volumes), are very valuable works. His name is fragrant in all the 
English Churches. He died in 1830. 




THE BAPTIST UNION. 237 

The strongest bond of oneness amongst the Baptists of Great Britain and Ire- 
land has been the Baptist Union. This body was originally formed in 1813, but its 
present Constitution was adopted in 1882. The following is its declaration of 
principles : 

'In this Union it is fully recognized that every separate Church has liberty to 
interpret and administer the laws of Christ, and that the immersion of believers is 
the only Christian baptism.' It is practically a home missionary society, and most 
of the Churches and Associations are affiliated with it ; but its scope of operations 
includes also an Annuity Fund for ministers, an Augmentation Fund (to increase 
the income of ill-paid pastors), and an Education Society. The last Report of the 
Union shows that there are in England, 1,998 churches, 2,817 chapels, 229,311 
communicants. Sunday-school scholars, 386,726, and pastors, 1,416. 

Ministerial education has been earnestly fostered by our British brethren. 
During the first century of their history, the greater part of their leading ministers 
had been educated for the pulpits of the Episcopal Church, and were graduates of 
Universities. Others, like Gill and Carey, self-taught, were the peers of the best 
scholars of their times. The necessity for some plan of systematic training of 
ministers was early felt, and nearly two hundred years ago the academy at Bristol 
was founded, but in 1770 the Education Society was formed in aid of that academy. 
Numerous ministers had been trained here before, but then the work took on the 
character of permanence and a wider scope of study. The institution still exists 
under the name of Bristol College. Besides this, Rawdon College was established 
in Yorkshire in 1804, which still flourishes. In 1810 the famous school at 
Stepney was established, but in 1856 it was removed, and is now known as the 
Regent's Park College, London. The Strict Baptists have a promising college at 
Manchester, which was founded in 1866, and is now under the presidency of Rev. 
Edward Parker. Besides these, there are the institutions of Haverfordwest, Llan- 
gollen and Pontypool, the College in Scotland and that founded by Mr. Spurgeon. 
Without the last named, there are about two hundred and fifty students for the 
ministry in these various schools. In view of these and many similar facts, Dr. 
Chalmers felt called upon to say of the English Baptists : ' That they have enriched 
the Christian literature of our country with authorship of the most exalted piety, as 
well as the first talent and the first eloquence. . . . That, perhaps, there is not a 
more intellectual community of ministers in our island, or who have put forth to 
their number a greater amount of mental power and mental activity in the defense 
and illustration of our common faith.' 

Our English brethren have produced many notable educators, but none more 
eminent than Dr. Angus, the principal of Regent's Park College, London. He 
was born at Bolam in 1816; entered King's College, London; but went to Edin- 
burgh, and in 1837 took his Master's Degree there, after competing successfully 
for the first prize in mathematics, logic and belles-lettres ; besides taking the 
gold medal in moral and political philosophy. At the close of his course he 



238 



DR. JOSEPH ANGUS. 




HKV. JOSEPH ANGUS, D. D. 



gained the students' prize, open to the whole University, on the influence of the 
writings of Lord Bacon. He began to preach early, and before he was twenty-one 
became pastor of the Church so long presided over by Dr. Gill and Dr. Bippon. 
In 1838 Dr. Chalmers delivered 
a course of lectures in ' Defense 
of Church Establishments.' A 
prize of one hundred guineas was 
offered for an answer. Dr. Angus 
replied to his renowned tutor in 
divinity, and the examiners, Drs. 
Raffles, J. Pye Smith and Mr. 
William Tooke, unanimously 
awarded him the prize. For near- 
ly ten years, 1840-49, he was Sec- 
retary of the Baptist Missionary 
Society ; during which time there 
was a large increase in its funds. 
In 1817 he visited the West In- 
dian Stations, to complete the in- 
dependence of the Churches there. 
In 1839 he became Principal of 
the College at Stepney, now Regent's Park, which has become a powerful in- 
stitution under his management. Within the last twenty years a fund of £12,000 
has been raised as a fund for the support of students, besides a sum of £30,000 for 
supporting professorships of Biblical Literature at the college. A Lectureship has 
also been founded to bear his name. He is a finished and prolific author. His 
series of 'Hand-Books on the Bible,' the ' English Tongue,' 'English Literature,' 
etc., are most valuable productions, being widely known and used, as are his many 
other works. He was a member for nearly ten years of the London School Board, 
and for an equal term he was an examiner in the University of London. He also 
served as one of the late revisers of the New Testament, made for the Convocation 
of Canterbury. Few men are more accomplished or exert greater influence amongst 
the literati of Great Britain. 

John Foster, the great essayist, was an honor to the English Baptists. He Avas 
born at Halifax in 1770 ; at seventeen he became a pupil at Bristol College, having 
been baptized by Dr. Favvcett, and was pastor first at Newcastle. His sanctity and 
originality in the pulpit were very marked, as his ' Broadmead Discourses ' show, 
yet he was never a preacher of note, being singularly subdued, and peculiarly 
eccentric in his delivery, and so, seldom preached to more than a handful of people. 
The late Rev. William Jay, of Bath, who knew him well, thus speaks of him : ' In 
preaching, his delivery all through was in a low and equable voice, with a kind of 



JOHN FOSTER. 



239 



surly tone, and a frequent repetition of a word at the beginning of a sentence. He 
had a little fierceness occasionally in his eye ; otherwise his face was set, and his arms 
perfectly motionless. He despised all gesticulation, and also all attempts to render 
any thing emphatical in announcement ; looking for the effect in the bare sentiment 
itself, unhelped by any thing in the delivery, which he professed to despise.' u He 
writes thus of himself to Mr. Horsfall : ' I have involuntarily caught a habit of looking 
too much on the right side of the meeting. "lis on account of about half a dozen 
sensible fellows who sit together there. I cannot keep myself from looking at them. 

I sometimes almost forget that I 
have any other auditors. They 
have so many significant looks, pay 
such particular and minute atten- 
tion, and so instantaneously catch 
any thing curious, that they become 
a kind of mirror in which the 
preacher may see himself. Some- 
times, whether you will believe it 
or not, I say humorous things. 
Some of these men perceive it and 
smile. I, observing, am almost be- 
trayed into a smile myself.' He 
was pastor also in Dublin, Chiches- 
ter, Do wend and Frome. His won- 
derful essays on character, romance, 
taste and popular ignorance, rank 
him amongst the first literary men 
of England. His thought is pro. 
found, his eloquence massive and 
his style veiy lucid. He died 
October 15th, 1843. 

A race of singularly influential laymen have been raised in the British Baptist 
Churches, amongst whom may be mentioned ¥ra. B. Gurney, for his great mis- 
sionary enterprise ; Sir Samuel Morton Peto, for his rare piety and benevolence ; 
Sir Robert Lush, late Lord-Justice of the High Court of Appeals, for his simplicity 
of heart and his professional eminence ; and Major-General Havelock, for his 
skillful patriotism and consecration to Christ. His name has become so historic 
in connection with the late Sepoy Rebellion, that a fuller notice of him is de- 
sirable. 

This Christian hero was born April 5th, 1795, at Bishop-Wearmouth. His 
father was wealthy, and his mother was a very devout Christian, who daily gath- 
ered her seven children about her for prayer and the study of the Scriptures. He 




REV. JOHN FOSTER. 



240 



SIM HENMY BATE LOCK. 




was educated at the Charter-house, and read law under Chitty, at the Middle Tem- 
ple. In 1815 he entered the army, and eight years afterward was sent to India. 
On the sea he consecrated himself to Christ, became a lowly follower of the Lamb, 
and at once made his Christianity felt upon all around him by preaching the Gospel 
to his fellow soldiers. He served with great distinction in Burma and Afghanistan 
from 1824 to 1851, when he became' adjutant-general of the queen's troops in India. 
He had been immersed on his trust in Christ at Serampore in 1830, and had 
married a daughter of Dr. Marshman, the great missionary there. His custom was 
to spend two hours alone with 
God every morning, whether in 
camp or campaign, and, as often 
as he could find time, to read and 
expound the Scriptures to his 
men. His biographer gives a 
touching account of an officer 
hearing hymns floating around a 
heathen pagoda, and on entering, 
finding Havelock, with about a 
hundred soldiers, reading the 
Scriptures to them by the light 
of the dim lamps burning before 
the idols. No wonder that the 
troops of this splendid Christian 
soldier were renowned for their 
prudence and bravery, even to 
daring, or that their invincibility 
was ascribed to the fact that they 
were ' Haveloek's Saints.' The 
general spent 1856-57 in Persia, 

but immediately, on the breaking out of the Sepoy Rebellion, hastened to the front, 
and gained many brilliant victories over Nana-Sahib, at Cawnpore, Lucknow and 
other places, subduing 50,000 drilled troops with 2,500 men. Parliament created 
him a major-general and a baronet, and gave him a pension of £1,000 a year. This 
thoughtful and pure servant of God died in India, November 22d, 1859, saying to 
Sir James Outram : ' For more than forty years I have so ruled my life that when 
deatli came I might face it without fear. I am not in the least afraid ; to die is 
gain. I die happy and contented.' Then calling his eldest son to his side, he lov- 
ingly said to him : ' Come, my son, and see how a Christian can die ! ' 

Hugh Stowell Brown stood prominent amongst the most able and useful 
pastors of England. His father was a clergyman of the English Church, and Hugh 
was born in the Isle of Man, August 10th, 1823. The following interesting state- 




SIR HENIiY HAVELOCK. 



HUGH ST WELL BROWN. 



241 



ment is taken from ' Men of the Time ; ' he was '• nephew of the Rev. Hugh 
Stowell, of Manchester. He was educated partly at home and partly at the Douglas 
Grammar School, until he reached the age of fifteen, when he came to England to 
learn land-surveying. After spending about two years in mastering the drudgery and 

details of that, business, his 
views underwent a change, 
and he repaired to "Wolverton 
for the purpose of learning 
the profession of an engineer. 
This occupation he followed 
until he became of age, and 
he drove a locomotive engine 
on the London and North- 
western Railway for six 
months. It was his custom, 
after his day's work at Wol- 
verton was done, to spend 
four or five hours in reading 
and in meditating on what 
he had read ; and his first, 
classical exercises were writ- 
ten with a piece of chalk 
inside the fire-box of a loco- 
motive engine. Resolving to 
become a clergyman of the 
Church of England, he en- 
tered as a student at King's 
College, in his native town of Douglas, and studied there for three years. Doubts, 
however, came over his mind respecting the truth of the doctrines in the Liturgy 
and Occasional Services and Catechism of the Church of England. These doubts 
ultimately produced in his mind the conviction that the baptismal doctrines of the 
Establishment were at variance with Holy Scripture, and he accordingly became a 
member of the Baptist denomination. Having acted for a short time as a city 
missionary in Liverpool, he was appointed minister of Myrtle Street Chapel,' as 
assistant to Rev. James Lister. In 1848 he became sole pastor, following this 
venerable man, who had served the Church above forty years. Mr. Brown's min- 
istry in the same congregation lasted for nearly the same period, and was wonder- 
fully successful. No man in Liverpool possessed the confidence and affection of 
that great city more fully than he, and no man has done more to honor and bless it in 
all its forms of religious and benevolent life. His Church wielded a wide influence, 
and had grown under his pastoral labors from about three hundred communicants 




REV. HUGH STOWELL BROWN'. 



242 



ROBERT HALL. 



to almost a thousand, besides planting several branch churches and many Sunday- 
schools. As a preacher, Mr. Brown was strong, full of freshness and force and 
evangelical to the core. He was a sturdy Baptist, lovable, hospitable, generous to 
a fault, and without a tittle of cant in his nature. It would be hard to find a 
broader or truer man on earth, in all that makes true Christian manliness, than 
Hugh Stowell Brown. He died very suddenly at his home, February 24th, 1886, 
in the fullness of his strength. In person he was large, very genial in his manner, 
racy as a conversationalist, true as a friend and eloquent as a preacher. His 
brethren loved to honor him, and in 1878 elected him President of the Baptist 
Union. His ' Lectures for the People,' which open all the elements of his character 
and genius, have reached a circulation of more than forty thousand, and it is in con- 
templation to erect a monument to his memory in the city which he so largely blessed. 
Robert Hall, not the greatest scholar, theologian, or leader of the Baptists, 
stands probably at the head of the British pulpit as a rhetorician and orator. His 
father was pastor of the Baptist 
Church at Arnsby, near Leices- 
ter, where Robert was born in 
1764, being the youngest in a 
family of fourteen. From his 
birth to his death he was feeble 
in body, sensitive and nervous ; 
at the age of two years he could 
neither talk nor walk, and near 
the close of his life he said that 
he remembered few hours when 
he had not been in pain amount- 
ing to agony. But so precocious 
was he mentally that his nurse 
taught him the alphabet from 
the tombstones of a neighboring 
church-yard before he could talk 
plainly. As a boy, he displayed 
a passion for books, and at the 
age of ten is said to have read 
'Edwards on the Will' and 

'Butler's Analogy,' with a clear comprehension of their contents. At fifteen 
he entered Bristol College, where he made rapid progress and remained for 
three years. While there he made several attempts at oratory, with perfect and 
humiliating failure. In 1781 he entered the University of Aberdeen, where he 
remained for four years. Sir James Mackintosh was a fellow-student, but Hall 
outstripped all his fellows in the classics, philosophy and mathematics. He took 




REV. ROBERT HALL. 



HIS DOCTRINES AND ELOQUENCE. 243 

his Master's Degree in 1785, and spent three years as classical tutor at Bristol, as 
well as assistant to Dr. Caleb Evans, pastor of Broadmead Chapel. 

His eloquence won him fame, and the leading minds in that city were drawn 
around him in crowds, but his orthodoxy soon fell into question and not without 
reason. Consciously or unconsciously he was affected all his life by Socinian prin- 
ciples, not only on the Trinity and the personality of the Spirit, but on correlated 
doctrines. His admiration of Socinus was enthusiastic, as is seen on various points, 
and on none more clearly than in his novel views on baptism and communion, their 
relations to each other and to Apostolic Christianity. He not only rejected the 
federal headship of Adam, but he held the semi-materialistic view that ' Man's think- 
ing powers and faculties are the result of a certain organization of matter, and that 
after death he ceases to be conscious till the resurrection.' In 1790 he became 
pastor at Cambridge, successor to the distinguished Bobert Bobinson, where he 
remained fifteen years. There he stirred men of the highest mental powers and 
culture, and under the shadow of the University, with the reputation of '• Brince of 
the Bulpit,' he was stimulated to his highest efforts. In 1793 he published his great 
' Apology for the Freedom of the Fress,' which moved the whole country. Fartial 
insanity overtook him, with entire bodily prostration, and he was compelled to resign 
his charge in 1806, not, however, before he had published his 'Modern Infidelity' 
(1801) and his ' Sentiments Broper to the Bresent Crisis (1803), productions which, 
for their eloquence, carried his fame through the realm. 

Becovering, from 1806 to 1819 he was pastor at Leicester. Here he published 
his ' Terms of Communion ' in 1815, but in 1819 accepted the pastorate of Broad-, 
mead at Bristol, where he remained till his death, in 1831; when a post-mortem 
examination showed that his aggravated disease had made the last twenty years one 
slow martyrdom. His moral character and private life were delightfully attractive, 
biTt he was fond of controversy, in which he was extremely pertinacious and much 
given to the use of polished but keen satire. God had endowed him with all the 
native qualities of a great pulpit orator, and he had faithfully cultivated these as 
gifts from God. Though his health was so uncertain he had a powerful frame, 
which gave him that imposing presence which prepares the auditor to attach 
meaning to every word and action of a true orator. His voice was not remarkable 
for volume, but it was fitted by sweetness and flexibility to express every emotion. 
His style in spoken discourse was easy and graceful, every thought being clothed in 
its appropriate language, and, as is natural, was without that smell of the lamp which 
marks, his published works. His attempt there to be always labored and dignified 
often falls into the pompous, stilted and artificial. His private conversation is said 
to have been adorned by brilliant wit and other forms of relief, but he never allows 
one stroke of this to appear in his writings ; yet, inadequately as they represent his 
genius, they are full of splendid rhetoric and thrilling eloquence. 

His bias toward what is known as philosophical Socinianism was less apparent 



244 HIS VIEWS OF ORDINANCES. 

in his later life, and he even denied that it existed, with some show of reason, 
especially on the atonement. But in his view of the constitution of a Christian 
Church he is one with Socinus through and through, in that he confounds Church 
organization with personal Christian life, and sinks the first in the last for all 
practical purposes. Socinus, an Italian, born 1539, went into Poland, and in 1580 
published his treatise on the question, ' Whether it is lawful for a Christian to be 
without water baptism % ' He wrote other works on this and kindred subjects, 
making two Latin folio volumes of over 800 pages each; and this work occupies 
30 pages, beginning at page 708, vol. i. He adopted a new position on the terms 
of communion, not only in opposition to all Christendom as it then existed, 
and had existed in all Christian history, but as it exists still ; namely, That baptism 
is not a term of Church fellowship, and, therefore, that those who wish to enter the 
Church and share its privileges may do so in 'perfect union' without baptism at all. 
Socinus did not, with the Friends, reject both the ordinances, but held that the 
Supper is binding on the Christian, while baptism is not. This not only places the 
Supper in a false position, by making it of more consequence than baptism, but it 
forces him to deny that baptism is an appointment of Christ. Mr. Hall did not 
agree with him in denying that baptism is a New Testament institution, but, on the 
contrary, he held that it is, and that it is only properly administered to a believer 
by his immersion ; but they were entirely one in teaching that baptism was not 
essential to the reception of the Supper ; therefore, that Churches should admit to 
the Lord's table those who are not baptized, and whom they know to be unbaptized. 
Any person who carefully compares Socinus and Hall, page by page and propo- 
sition by proposition, will be struck by the step-to-step movement which leads them 
to the same conclusion, and in many eases with an almost exact form of expressing 
the sentiment, as well as with the oneness of the sentiment itself. They both deny 
that baptism is necessary to full membership in the Church, and to participation in 
its discipline and government ; they teach that there are essential and non-essential 
truths in Christianity, and that baptism, per se, ranks with the non-essential ; they 
both maintain that Paul, the apostle, required Churches to tolerate the neglect of 
baptism, as an exercise of Christian liberty; they both deny that an external act, 
such as baptism, is to be exacted of a Christian in order to membership in the 
Church and a place at the Supper, for that true Christianity is governed .only by 
the internal and spiritual, as if the Supper had no external character ; they both 
claim that love and liberality demand the reception at the Table of the baptized 
and unbaptized alike ; and they both insist on sincerity as the chief qualification 
for the Supper, in keeping with the altered 'genius' of Christianity and 'the 
age.' Hall's position — in so far as they differ on the enforcement of baptism as 
m apostolic injunction — is more dangerous than the assumption of Socinus, that the 
Scriptures do not enjoin it at all; because it leaves the individual Christian as the 
supreme judge in the matter, as against the voice of the New Testament. It is 






CHARLES H. SPURGE ON. 



245 



this which makes his novel position so untraceable and yet beguiling. He tells us 
that ' the letter ' of Scripture requires men to be baptized, and he holds that all who 
are not immersed are not baptized, and yet, that it is displeasing to God and unchari- 
table to require them to obey Christ to ' the letter.' He denies that baptism is 
necessary to salvation, but implies that the Supper is ; and it is a matter for grati- 
tude that no body of Christians has yet adopted his ground, either in theory or 
practice, excepting those who follow him in the English Baptist Churches. 

Charles H addon Spukgeon, whose name is a household word the world over, 
is the most remarkable minister of Christ now living, taking all things into the 
account. He was born at Kelvedon, Essex, June 19th, 1834. His father and grand- 
father were Congregational pas- 
tors, and his mother was an un- 
commonly earnest Christian, 
who took great pains to form 
the character and seek the sab 
vation of her children. Charles's 
aunt, whom he named 'Mother 
Ann,' loved him tenderly and 
fostered him as her own child. 
Early he had a passion for books 
and pictures, and at the age of 
six delighted in Bunyan. The 
likeness of Bishop Bonner, whom 
he called ' Old Bonner,' stirred 
his dislike because of his cruel- 
ty ; and as a child he manifested 
great self-possession, decision, 
strong passions and will. His 
education was limited, being 
confined chiefly to a private 
academy at Colchester, kept by 
Mr. Leeding, a Baptist, and to a year in an agricultural school at Maidstone. His 
parents pressed him to enter Cambridge, but he refused, on the conviction that duty 
called him to active life. At fifteen he became deeply interested in his salvation, 
and was converted on hearing a sermon preached from Isa. xlv : 22, by an unlettered 
Primitive Methodist local preacher, in a little country chapel. He then became 
deeply interested in Bible baptism, and laid the matter before his father. Becom- 
ing convinced that it was his duty to be immersed on a confession of Christ, he 
walked from New Market to Isleham, seven miles, on May 3th, 1850, where Bev. Mr. 
Cantlow buried him with Christ in baptism. His mother moiirned his loss to the 

Independents, and told him that she had prayed earnestly for his conversion, but 
.18 




REV. C. H. SI'URGEON. 



246 HIS TOIL AND SUCCESS. 

not that he should be a Baptist. He replied : ' Well, dear mother, you know that 
the Lord is so good, that he always gives us more than we can ask or think.' 

At this time, he was a tutor in Mr. Leeding's school at New Market, which 
school was removed to Cambridge, and young Spurgeon accompanied it there, be- 
coming a member of the Baptist Church in St. Andrew's Street, where Robert Hall 
had so long been pastor. That Church had a ' Lay Preachers' Association,' for the 
supply of thirteen neighboring villages with preaching. Of this he became a mem- 
ber, preaching his first sermon in a. cottage at Teversham. From the first crowds 
flocked to hear the ' Boy Preacher,' and at eighteen he became pastor of the Baptist 
Church at Waterbeach, a village of about 1,300 people. His fame soon reached 
London, and he was invited to preach at the New Park Street Chapel in 1853, 
where, by a unanimous call, he became successor to Gill, Rippon and other worthies. 
His success was immediate and wonderful ; without parallel he sprang to the highest 
rank, but not without the severest trials. He possessed some youthful eccentricities, 
which to the eyes of many staid folk savored of boldness and self-conceit. On this 
plea, every sort of indecent attack was made upon him ; he was denounced as a 
' young clown,' ' mountebank,' etc., without stint ; and the writer well remembers 
the' time, when but two or three ministers in London treated him with common 
respect, to say nothing of Christian courtesy. But God was with him, and that 
was enough ; his ministry has simply been a marvel, all the solemn nobodies not- 
withstanding. His talent for organization and administration is very large ; his 
heart is all tenderness for destitute children, hence his orphanages ; is all sympathy 
for poor young ministers, hence his college ; and his head is a miracle amongst heads 
for common sense, hence his magnetic influence. "Without starch, self-conceit or 
sanctimonious clap-trap, he acts on living conviction. As a preacher, he deals only 
in what Christ and his apostles thought worthy of their attention ; tells what he 
knows about God and man, sin and holiness, time and eternity, in pure ringing 
Saxon ; uses voice enough to make people hear, speaks out like a man to men, 
lodging his words in their ears and hearts, instead of making his own throat or nose 
their living sepulcher. He fills his mind with old Gospel truth, and his memory 
with old Puritanic thought, calls the fertility of his imagination into use, believes in 
Jesus Christ with all the power of his being, loves the souls of men with all his 
heart and acts accordingly. He carries the least amount of religion possible in the 
whites of his eyes, but a living well of it in the depth of his soul ; and the real won- 
der is not that God has put such honor upon him, for if his life had been very dif. 
ferent from what it has been, even partial failure in the hands of such a man of God 
would have been a new and unsolvable mystery in the reign of a faithful Christ. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

BRITISH BAPTISTS— THE WELSH BAPTISTS. 

THE works of "Welsh bards form the best annals of Wales down to the four- 
teenth century, but as they trace no line of ' heretics,' it is difficult to tell 
what isolated lights shone there through the Dark Ages. Nowhere in Europe was 
the moral night darker than in Wales in those ages. The ignorance and depravity 
of the Welsh clergy were shocking. Even as late as 1560 Meyrick, Bishop of 
Bangor, said that in all his diocese there were but two clergymen who preached. 
At that time the clergy were allowed to marry, but by paying a pension they could 
keep concubines, and a large number of his clergy kept them. Strype, in his ' Life 
of Archbishop Parker,' says that in 1565 two Welsh Bishops were to be appointed 
for the sees of Bangor and Llandaff. The queen left the archbishop to name the 
men for these vacancies, but he found it difficult to secure honest clergymen to fill 
them, and he was earnestly pressed to appoint a man to Bangor who openly kept 
three concubines. The primate found it necessary to commission Dr. Yale to visit 
that bishopric before he ventured to appoint any one. Besides, there was no Bible 
there and the Reformation itself scarcely affected Wales for nearly a century. For 
thirty years after Elizabeth had established Protestantism by law there was no Bible 
in the Welsh tongue. Portions of the Scriptures were translated into manuscript 
before the Reformation, but some of them were lost. Taliesin, a bard of note in 
the sixth century, gave a paraphrase in verse of a few passages, and it is said that 
there was a manuscript translation of the Gospels in the library of St. Asaph's 
Cathedral. In the latter part of the thirteenth century it was already looked upon 
as old, and the Archbishop of Canterbury allowed the priests to exhibit it as a 
sacred thing. Bishop Goldwell, of St. Asaph, was deprived of his see on the 
accession of Elizabeth, because he refused to become a Protestant and went to 
Rome, taking the manuscript with him. He died there, and possibly it is in the 
Vatican to-day. Dafydd Ddu, another bard, wrote a poetical paraphrase in the 
fourteenth century on a part of the Psalms, the song of Zacharias, the angel's 
greeting to Mary and the song of Simeon, found in Luke's Gospel. Some other 
fragments of Scripture were given by others. But Dr. Llewelyn says, in his 
'History of Welsh Versions,' that 'for upward of seventy years from the set- 
tlement of the Reformation by Queen Elizabeth, for near one hundred years 
from Britain's separation from the Church of Rome, there were no Bibles in 
Wales, but only in the cathedrals or in the parish churches and chapels.' The 



248 THE CULDEES AND BARDS. 

first Welsh New Testament, made chiefly by Salesbury, was printed in London 
in 1567, and dedicated to Elizabeth. It was published at the expense of Hum- 
phrey Toy. The whole Bible, translated by William Morgan, was first printed in 
Welsh in 1588. 

Davis, Bishop of Monmouth, finds a wide difference between the Christianity 
of the ancient Britons and that of Austin in 596. The first followed the word of 
God, the other was mixed with human tradition. Dr. Fulk denied that Austin was 
the apostle of England, and charges him with corrupting the true Christianity 
which he found in Britain, by Bomish admixture. Fabian, himself a Catholic, 
shows that he imposed sundry things upon the Britons, which were refused as con- 
trary to the doctrine that they had at first received. 1 Bede says that the Culdees 
followed the Bible only and opposed the superstitions of Kome. Culdee, from 
Culdu, is a compound Welsh word, cut, thin, du, black ; and means a thin, dark 
man, as their mountaineers, who were noted for their godliness. The monks got 
possession of the Culdee colleges by degrees, and continued to preach without form- 
ing churches. Some claim that the Welsh Baptists sprang from this sturdy stock ; 
for individuals are found in Glamorgan, the Black Mountains, Hereford and Brecon 
Counties, who walked apart from Bome before the Reformation. Stephens, the 
late antiquarian of Merthyr, thought that the bards of the Chavi of Glamorgan 
kept up a secret intercourse with the Albigenses. This is probable, as some of 
them were conversant with the Italian poets. 

' Holy Rhys,' famous in 1390, was learned, and his wife was of the ' new faith ' 
(Lollard), for his son, Ieuan, was expelled from Margam Monastery for holding 
their opinions, or ' on account of his mother's religion.' His grandson also was 
imprisoned by Sir Matthew Cradoe for being of the 'new faith.' Another bard 
and ' prophet,' Thomas Llewelyn, was, according to an old manuscript, the first 
preacher to a congregation of dissenters in Wales, or, rather, he had three congre- 
gations. 2 Sion Kent, otherwise Dr. John Gwent, a poet-priest of about that time, 
wrote a satirical poem, called ' An Ode to Another Book,' in which he charges said 
book with fifteen dangerous heresies, and warns it to remember the fall of Oldcastle. 
This seems to have been a highly-prized Lollard book, known as the ' Lanthorn 
of Light,' for possessing a copy of which Cleydon, of London, was burnt. The 
Lollards swarmed in Wales, where Oldcastle hid for four years after escaping from 
the Tower. He was a native of the Welsh Cottian Alps, the Black Mountains, hav- 
ing been born at Old Castle about 1360. It is in dispute as to when and where Bap- 
tists first appeared in Wales. There are presumptive evidences that individuals held 
their views from the opening of the seventeenth century, and some have thought 
that the first Baptist Church was formed at Olchon, 1633. Joshua Thomas, of 
Leominster, perhaps the most reliable authority on the subject, doubts this. He 
leans to the belief that there were Baptists there at that date, but says : ' The first 
Baptist Church in Wales, after the Reformation, was formed at Ilston, near Swan- 



VAVASOR POWELL. 249 

sea, in Glamorganshire, in 1649.' Howell Yaugban preached at Olchon, 1633, and 
it is a curious fact that the first Non-conformists of Wales sprang up in the little 
valley, near Old Castle, embosomed in these Black Mountains, where this noble old 
* heretic ' lived. 

The vale of Olchon is difficult of access, and there the first Welsh dissidents 
found the most ready converts, who sheltered themselves in its rocks and dens. 
The Darren Ddu, or Black Rock, is a terribly steep and rough place, in which the 
Baptists took refuge, rich and poor, young and old, huddled together. It was 
under the Commonwealth that Vavasor Powell, Jenkin Jones and Hugh Evans 
formed the first Open Communion Baptist Churches in Wales, and that John Miles 
formed the first Strict Communion Baptist Churches there. The first Welsh Bap- 
tist Association was organized in 1651. John Miles is first mentioned February 
22d, 1649, in an 'Act of Parliament for the better propagation of the Gospel in 
Wales.' He is named with Powell, Jones and twenty-two others, as ' approvers,' to 
superintend preaching in the principality. He left the clergy of the State Church 
and became a Baptist leader, marked for his learning and piety. He went to 
America and we shall meet him there. 

Vavasor Powell was one of the strongest characters of his age. He was born 
of one of the best families in Wales, 1617; was graduated at Jesus College, Oxford, 
and entered the Established Church, as curate to his uncle, in Shropshire. One day 
a Puritan reproved him for breaking the Sabbath by taking part in the ' Sports,' 
and this led to his conversion after two years of mental agony for his sins. In 1641 
he began to preach the Gospel in earnest, but, his life being threatened, he fled to 
London in 1642, and joined the Parliamentary army as chaplain. After preaching 
two years in Kent he returned to Wales, bearing a certificate from the Assembly 
of Divines as an accredited preacher. It bore date September 11th, 1646, and 
was signed by the proculator, the marshal and fifteen others, amongst whom were 
Christopher Love and Joseph Caryl. In Wales he preached as an itinerant, a pre- 
vailing system there, for the Churches were made up of many branches, far apart. 
The ' Committee for Plundered Ministers ' paid him a salary of £66 10s. per 
annum. They supported many such itinerants, but for learning, energy and 
success he excelled them all. He was constantly in the pulpit and the saddle, 
preaching two or three times a day, in two or three places, riding more than a 
hundred miles a week. There was scarcely a place in Wales where he did not 
preach, in church, chapel, market-place or field, during the fourteen years of 
liberty, 1646 to 1660 ; yet at that time there was not a Dissenting place of worship 
in Wales. Some say that the first built by the Baptists was at Hay, near Olchon, 
1649 ; but, according to Thomas, the first was at Llanwenarth, in 1695. 3 Powell 
was immersed and became a Baptist in 1656. In his ' Confession of Faith' he 
teaches that baptism is immersion, and believers its only subjects ; but he did not 
hold it as the boundary of Church communion, nor were his Churches in the Baptist 



2SO JENKIN JONES,— THE ILSTON CHURCH. 

Association. Notwithstanding this no man fired the hatred of the Church party as 
he did, and no man's character was more aspersed than his, till death relieved him, 
October 27th, 1671. It is said that by 1660 he had formed twenty -two Churches in 
Wales, and had twenty thousand followers, most likely au exaggerated statement. 
Many of his troubles sprang from his resistance of Cromwell's later assumptions. 
He had denounced him from the pulpit in Blackfriars, for which cause he was 
arrested. He suffered every kind of persecution for preaching, and spent eight 
years in thirteen prisons, dying in the Fleet. His ' Confession ' of thirty articles is 
given in a treatise, entitled ' The Bird in the Cage, Chirping.' In this he gives the 
faith of the Welsh Churches which he founded. 

Jenkxn Jones, commonly called ' captain,' was another grand sample of this 
early Welsh independence and suffering for Christ. He was a gentleman of prop- 
erty and education, who had been in the army of the Commonwealth. He raised a 
troop of a hundred and twenty horse for Cromwell, arming and equipping them 
himself. With these he kept the king's friends in Breckonshire under subjection, 
often appearing with the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other. Walker 
says that he was incumbent in his native parish, and Calamy, that he was rejected 
from his living, so the Church party berated him as a ' violent Anabaptist.' His 
presence and address were majestic, and once when going to preach in Monmouth- 
shire, a soldier of the royal army waylaid him to kill him, but was so struck with 
his comeliness and bearing, that his heart failed ; he heard him preach and was con- 
verted. After the Restoration his estates were confiscated, and he was imprisoned 
at Caermarthen. We have no account of his death. 

These sketches of the real founders of the Baptist denomination in Wales 
will help us the better to understand the following facts. Before the death of 
Powell the Open Communion Baptists were much the more numerous in Wales, 
but after that they gradually declined. The Ilston Church records give the 
following account of the organization of that Church. A Baptist Church was 
meeting in the Glass-house, Broad Street, London, of which William Consett and 
Edward Draper were members. Miles and Thomas Proud visited this Church just 
when they were praying God to send more laborers into the vineyard, and these two 
were sent back to Wales as missionaries. On the 1st of October, 1619, they formed 
a regular Baptist Church at Ilston as the result. This book claims that this was the 
first Church of baptized believers in the principality. 

It says : ' When there had been no company or society of people holding forth 
and professing the doctrine, worship, order, and discipline <of the Gospel, according 
to the primitive institution, that ever we heard of in all Wales, since the apostasy, 
it pleased the Lord to choose this dark corner to place his name in, and honor us, 
undeserving creatures, with the happiness of being the first in all these parts, among 
whom was practiced the glorious ordinance of baptism, and here to gather the first 
Church of baptized believers.' Jane Lloyd and Elizabeth Proud were the first con- 



BAPTISTS TAKE TITHES. 251 

verts baptized here, but in eleven years the Church grew to two hundred and sixty 
members under the ministry of Miles. He also preached with great success in all 
the region round about, and various Churches were formed in that part of Wales. 
A very bitter controversy sprang up between the Strict Communion and Open 
Churches, and Thomas Proud was expelled for laxity on that subject by the strict 
brethren. After a time the Open Churches dwindled away, or fell into Pedobaptist 
bodies, a natural tendency. Some Baptist ministers even went so far as to accept 
State payment by church tithes, under the act of 1649, for the propagation of the 
Gospel in "Wales. These were itinerants who traveled at large, and were paid 
by the ' Committee of the Sequestered Livings.' It may be interesting to give a 
copy of the certificate issued to Thomas Evans, great-grandfather of Dr. Caleb 
Evans : 

' By the Commission for the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales. Whereas, 
five of the ministers, in the Act of Parliament named, bearing date the 25th of 
February, 1649, and entitled ^An Act for the better Propagation of the Gospel in 
Wales" have, according to the tenors of the said act, approved of Mr. Thomas 
Evans the younger, to be a person qualified for the work of the ministry, and 
recommended him with their advice to us, that he be encouraged in the work of the 
ministry ; we do, according to an order to us directed by the committee of five at 
Neath, therefore order that Mr. John Pryce, Treasurer, shall forthwith pay unto 
the said Thomas Evans the sum of £30, which we have thought fit to allow him 
towards his salary and encouragement in the work of the ministry. And this 
our order, together with his acquittance, shall be a sufficient discharge for the said 
Treasurer. Dated under our hands, the 16th of May, in the year of our Lord 1653. 
John Williams, Secretary.' 

As soon as the Baptists saw that they had compromised their principles by this 
blunder, they retreated from their false position, and Powell says that he and many 
of his brethren 'did not take any salary at all, nor any other maintenance whatever 
since the year 1653.' 4 Powell published a severe attack upon Cromwell's policy in 
1655, under the title 'Word for God,' signed by three hundred and twenty-one 
Welshmen, most of whom were Baptists. This was a solemn protest against the 
' new modeling of ministers ' as ' antichristian,' and against the ' keeping up of 
parishes and tithes, as a popish invention.' The Llanwenarth Church felt so deeply 
on this matter that they entered the following on their church book : ' Whether 
Gospel ministers may receive payment from the magistrates.' Mr. William 
Pritchard (their minister) was advised to reject the offer of State money, and this 
record was agreed to on 'the 11th day of the 5th month, 1655, and also, that 
they (the Church) doe withdraw from all such ministers that doe receive mainte- 
nance from the magistrates, and from all such as consent not to wholesome doc- 
trine, or teach otherwise.' As this was a branch of the Abergavenny Church and a 
member of the Association, it is fair to suppose that this was the general senti- 
ment on the subject of State ministers and their reception of State money for 
ministerial services. 



252 DEBATE AND PERSECUTION. 

The distinctive tenets of the Baptists, their zeal and rapid progress in the 
principality, stirred up a formidable opposition, which took the honorable form of 
public debate. One such discussion took place in St. Mary's Parish Church, Aber- 
gavenny, September 5th, 1653. The subject was ' Believer's Baptism,' and John 
Tombes disputed first with Henry Vaughan, then with John Cragge. Their 
arguments were afterward published. Wood says of Tombes : ' He showed himself 
a most excellent disputant, a person of incomparable parts, well versed in the 
Hebrew and Greek languages.' He also speaks of a similar debate with Baxter, 
thus : ' All scholars there and then present, who knew the way of disputing and 
managing arguments, did conclude that Tombes got the better of Baxter by far.' s 
Probably this was the first debate on baptism in Wales, and Joshua Thomas says 
that more than forty persons were immersed into the Church in Abergavenny that 
year. But in proportion as the Baptists grew, they were assailed by pen and tongue 
from all quarters, and in 1656 the elders and messengers of eight Churches met at 
Brecon and published ' An Antidote against the Times,' in self-defense. This was 
probably the first Welsh Baptist Book. They speak with the greatest gratitude ' of 
thousands of poor, ignorant, straying people' brought to Christ, and of three edi- 
tions of the New Testament, and 'six thousand copies of the whole Bible,' cir- 
culated in fourteen years, since some religious liberty was enjoyed in Wales. At 
this time, eight Churches belonged to the Association, besides the ' Powell Bap- 
tists,' and the 'Evans' people who did not belong to it; and Thomas mentions 
the names of thirty Baptist ministers in Wales under the Commonwealth. But 
from the ascent of Charles II., May 29th, 1660, we hear no more of the Associ- 
ation for eight and twenty years. Persecution raged furiously against all Non- 
conformists in Wales, and the Baptists became, as usual, the special subjects of 
hate, storm and chains ; prisons and doom became their gloomy fate. Before the 
end of June, the king's wrath burst upon the Non-conformists of Wales, followed 
by a series of the most iniquitous ordinances that despotism could desire. The 
year 1662 brought the Act of Uniformity; 1664, the Conventicle Act; 1665, 
the Five Mile Act; and 1673, the Test Act. Under one pretense or another, 
butchery held high carnival for these years. Yet, thousands would not bow the 
knee, and amongst them, some of the noblest Baptists that ever Wales produced. 
During this hot persecution the Welsh Baptists sent a petition to the king, 
which was presented to him personally by a member of Parliament from Caer- 
marthen. They say : ' We dare not walk the streets, and are abused even in our 
own houses. If we pray to God with our families, we are threatened to be hung. 
Some of us are stoned almost to death, and others imprisoned for worshiping God 
according to the dictates of our consciences and the rule of his word.' The 
king, with characteristic heartlessness, sent them a polite answer, full of fair prom- 
ises, but paid no more attention to the matter, and their sufferings increased day 
by day. 



GRIFFITH HO WELLS. 253 

Excommunication carried with it the denial of burial in the parish church-yards, 
so that the Baptists were obliged to bury their dead in their own gardens, or where 
they could, generally in secret and at night. A godly woman in Radnorshire had 
been excommunicated for not attending that parish church, but had been secretly 
buried in its burying-ground. The enraged parson, however, had her body taken 
from its grave and dragged to the cross-roads, to be buried as a malefactor. There 
her friends erected a stone to mark the spot, but it was demolished. Yet, even in 
this period of fiery persecution, we have the history of a new Baptist Church, formed 
under singular circumstances of persecution and hatred. William Jones, a Pres- 
byterian, was ejected from his parish in 1660, and imprisoned for three years in 
Caermarthen Castle. During that time he became a Baptist, and when liberated he 
went to Olchon to be immersed. On returning home he preached his new faith 
and, on the 4th of August, 1667, baptized Griffith Howells and five others. Howells 
was wealthy and educated, and on the 25th, five more persons were immersed. By 
July 12th, 1668, the number had increased to thirty-one, who were organized into 
a Church, of which Jones and Howells were elected joint elders. In 1777, one 
century afterward, this Church had so branched out into the counties of Pembroke, 
Caermarthen and Cardigan that it numbered 1,767 members. Interesting accounts 
might be given of the local Churches of the several counties, but they are all much 
the same: a history of oppression, decadence, division and providential intervention. 
Sometimes cases of excessive barbarity are put on record, and others of wonderful 
deliverance. 

The Welsh Baptists found relief in the Toleration Act of 1689, which protects 
them in their worship to this day, and under its provisions they left the rocks and 
other hiding places. Their brethren in London invited them to a conference in 
October of that year, where about a hundred Churches were represented; seven 
ministers went up from Wales and the Assembly set forth a Confession of Faith. 
The Welsh Association, consisting of ten Churches, reassembled at Llanwenarth, 
May 6th, 1700, and continued to grow, so that almost every county has now an 
Association of its own. At first, the official language of these bodies was English, 
but since 1708, the vernacular has been used. The annual meeting of the first 
Association was held in Whitsun-week, the first day being spent in prayer and 
fasting. The ' Associational Sermon ' was introduced in 1703, and in time, preach- 
ing became the chief feature of the meetings, until now, from ten to fifteen 
sermons are preached at such gatherings. Our brethren resorted much to fasting 
and prayer at their associational meetings, especially when heresy and contention 
crept in, or where two Churches were at variance. In such cases, all the Churches 
were called upon to hold a day of prayer and fasting; and in 1723, when two 
Churches were in a fight, 'the first Wednesday in each month, for half a year, 
was appointed for fasting and prayer, on account of this distressing affair.' Then 
when the contest ended, ' the Churches were desired to observe days of thanks- 



264 INCREASE OF CHURCHES. 

giving for what was done.' Prayer and fasting form an excellent remedy for that 
'demon;' would that all church fighters would take a vow neither to eat nor 
drink till their fight was ended ; this would happily rid us of most of them within 
forty days. 

The death of Queen Anne and the accession of George I., 1714, prevented the 
passage of the ' Schism Bill,' and the Welsh Baptists kept the anniversary of that 
day with thanksgiving for many years. At the time of the Be volution, so-called 
(1688), there were eleven Baptist Churches in Wales, ten of which are named by 
Joshua Thomas, the eleventh being a very strong Church, under the pastoral care 
of William Jones, in the counties of Pembroke and Caermarthen, formed in 
that year. By the year 1735 these had increased to sixteen. But this statement 
is misleading, unless we bear in mind that each Church, so-called, was made up 
of many congregations, all under one pastor, who had many assistants, in some 
cases six or eight, and in one case eleven. The Churches did not report the 
number of members to the Association, but the separate Church records, which 
have been preserved, show, that there were several hundred communicants in a 
number of these Churches, and the names of forty-two ministers are given who 
labored in them between 1700 and 1736 ; all Strict Communionists, many of them 
men of might. Besides those who remained in Wales, large numbers of Baptists 
migrated to America, and took a leading part in establishing the denomination here, 
as we shall find. 

About 1692, Baptist sentiments had taken such a strong hold in the western 
part of the principality, that warm controversies arose with the Pedobaptists, 
especially the Independents. Several debates were had ; then both sides agreed to 
preach on baptism at Penlan. John Thomas, an Independent, preached on infant 
baptism, and John Jenkins, a Baptist, on believer's baptism. The result was, that 
so many Independents were immersed as rendered it desirable for them to ask 
Samuel Jones, a Presbyterian, and a fine scholar, to write in defense of infant 
baptism ; but, as he declined, James Owen, of Oswestry, undertook that work. In 
1693 he published ' Infant Baptism from Heaven,' perhaps the first book in the 
Welsh tongue on that subject. In answer, Benjamin Keach published ' Light broke 
forth in Wales.' Another controversy of the same sort took place about 1726, 
between Miles Harris for the Baptists and Edmund Jones for the Pedobaptists. 
These combatants belabored each other full soundly and kept the country in a 
turmoil until a convention was called of leaders from both sides, in which they 
agreed to respect each other for the future, and try to behave decently. This agree- 
ment was duly signed by three Baptists and six Pedobaptists, properly attested by 
five other ministers and printed in 1728. But, alas for the weakness of Welsh 
Pedobaptist nature ! Fowler Walker, the Independent minister of Abergavenny, the 
first attestor to this awful document, could not keep his pen still, but in 1732 
published a tract on ' Infant Baptism ; ' and then, alas for the Baptist Association ! in 



THE CALVINISTIC CONTROVERSY. 2SS 

response it published ' Doe's Tract of Forty Texts from the New Testament on 
Believer's Baptism.' And, as if this were not enough, Brother David Bees, of 
London, sent a letter to Brother Walker, promising that his book should be 
further considered at leisure. Accordingly, in 1734, he published his ' Infant Bap- 
tism no Institution of Christ's; and the Rejection of it Justified by Scripture 
and Antiquity.' Whereupon, thereafter, Brother Walker found it comfortable to 
keep still. 

After this the Welsh Baptists, who were principally firm, hyper-Calvinists 
holding the quinquarticular points, had a warm controversy amongst themselves on 
Arminianism. The ' Arminian Heresy,' as it was called, was creeping in, however, 
and at least three ministers were affected thereby. The chief point in dispute was 
whether it was the duty of sinners to turn to God, because of their obligations to 
the moral law. But in 1733 Enoch Francis had the good sense to publish his 
' Word in Season,' in which he took the moderate Calvinistic ground, so ably pre- 
sented afterward by Andrew Fuller, namely : That the atonement of Christ is 
sufficient for all mankind, but that its efficacy is confined to the elect only, and that 
the offer of salvation is, therefore, to be made to all who hear the Gospel. This 
position softened the controversy, but it continued down to the present century, and 
made great trouble in Churches which had more than one minister, who disagreed on 
the subject. At Hengoed, Morgan Griffith was a stanch Calvinist, but Charles 
Winter, his co-pastor, was a thorough Arminian, and they debated the matter 
^warmly. It was arranged that Winter should not preach any thing contrary to 
Griffith, which arrangement held good till Griffith's death in 1738, when the Church 
expelled Winter and twenty-four others with him, who formed an Arminian Bap- 
tist Church, near Merthyr Tydvil, which, however, soon became extinct. Other 
Churches had similar troubles. 

It is interesting to trace the history of ministerial education amongst the Welsh 
Baptists. The Pembrokeshire Church at a very early date was called ' The College,' 
because of the many ministers whom it sent forth ; and probably it had some sys- 
tem of training peculiar to itself. Young Baptist ministers were trained at Samuel 
Jones's private Presbyterian Seminary for a while, but about 1732 the Baptists 
established one of their own near Pontypool. This school was founded chiefly by 
Morgan Griffith and Miles Harris, two most enterprising and liberal spirits, and 
was of immense service to the Baptist ministry until 1770, when the Bristol College 
was established and this Seminary was given up. One of its best-known students out 
of a list of forty powerful names was Dr. Thos. Llewelyn, a descendant of the 
Welsh Bible translator. He finished his studies in London and became president 
of a Baptist Academy there, which prepared men for the ministry. In 1696 he 
raised subscriptions for and induced the ' Society for Promoting Christian Knowl- 
edge ' to issue twenty thousand Welsh Bibles. He also wrote a ' History of Welsh 
Versions,' and a work on ' The British Tongue ' in its relation to other languages,, 



236 THE WELSH FATHERS. 

and to the ' Welsh Bible.' Dr. Eippon says that Gibbon remarked to him, when 
speaking of linguists : ' I think, my young friend, that Dr. Llewelyn is the first 
scholar we have among the Protestant Dissenters.' 

If space permitted, it would be a pleasant task to give the narrative of large 
numbers of the Welsh Baptist fathers, with their notable sayings and doings, many 
of them being amongst the most eminent of their day ; learned, zealous for the truth 
and its able defenders, whose Gospel ministry was marked by great power from 
above in the salvation of men. In this list would stand prominent the names of 
Lewis Thomas, William Pritchard, Enoch Francis, Morgan Griffith, Caleb Evans 
of Pentre and his ten illustrious descendants in the ministry, with John Harris. 
These and many others fought the good fight for toleration and conquered ; for by 
1715 one eighth of the Welsh were Non-conformists, and a much larger proportion 
by 1736. In 1794 the number of Baptist Churches in Wales was fifty-six, with 
7,050 members; but in 1798, the churches numbered eighty-four, with 9,000 
members, divided for convenience into the Northern, Eastern and Western Asso- 
ciations. They had passed through many contentions, on the Sandemanian, Socin- 
ian and Arian questions, as well as on the subject of Communion. For a time 
Sandemanianism wrought great mischief amongst the Welsh Churches, many of 
the pastors, amongst them Christmas Evans, being almost blinded by its preten- 
sions. In the opening of the nineteenth century, the leading men of the denom- 
ination became involved in a warm controversy concerning the Atonement and 
Redemption ; and Christmas Evans published a book in 1811, in which he gave 
what was called ' a commercial aspect ' to the Atonement. He set forth that the 
atoning death of Cln-ist is of equal weight with the sins of the elect ; while others 
took the ground that its effects were twofold, bearing on the sins of the world in 
general, and on those of the elect in particular. At that point in the controversy 
Richard Foulkes, the Baptist pastor at Newbridge, and John Phillips Davies, the 
pastor at Tredegar, who had embraced the doctrines of Andrew Fuller, came to 
their defense, many others joined them, and the debate ran high. The result was 
that the Welsh Baptists became more distinguished from that period for biblical 
teaching than for systematic theology ; and to-day no Churches hail truth in its 
simplicity, freedom, amplitude and warmth, in the form given to it by the divine 
Oracles, more heartily than do the Baptists of Wales. They hold the doctrines of 
grace and the responsibility of man by a strong and clear grasp which honors 
them amongst the Churches of Christ, and they unhesitatingly maintain every 
other principle which is vital to Bible Baptists. The number of public debates 
held on Baptism, and the works published on that subject by our Welsh brethren, 
has been endless. But the most able production of all is ' The Act of Baptism,' 
from the pen of the late Dr. Hugh Jones, published in 1882. It will long remain 
a standard work. 

We have already seen that the Baptists of Wales became interested early in 







M. THOMAS. 



JOSHUA THOMAS. 



JOHN WILLIAMS. 



J. JENKIXS. 
JOSEPH HARRIS. 



WELSH BAPTIST COLLEGES. 237 

educational plans, and we find Morgan Griffith, of Hengoed, establishing the Tros- 
nant Academy as early as 1732-34. Joshua Thomas kept a school also at Leominster 
for many years, and prepared students for the Bristol Academy ; but his successor, 
Samuel Ivilpin, opened a regular academy there in 1805, from which sprang some 
of the first men in the denomination. The Abergavenny College was founded in 
the year 1S07, with Micah Thomas for its president, who sent forth six hundred and 
six ministers of such character that he won for the institution the confidence and 
support of all the Churches. Thomas was a noble and indefatigable worker and a 
fine scholar. He baptized over 400 persons, and preached about 5,500 sermons, 
besides doing his pastoral work at Abergavenny and his presidential duties. He 
died in 1853, aged seventy-five. 

Pontypool College is a continuation of this. Its buildings were erected in 1836, 
and have since been enlarged, making them very inviting. Dr. Thomas was presi- 
dent for forty-one years, then was succeeded by William Lewis, A.M., who died in 
1880, the chair being filled at present by William Edwards, B.A., assisted by David 
Thomas, B.A., as classical tutor. Haverfordwest College was established in 1839, 
David Da vies being its first president, who filled the place till his death, in 1S56. 
Thos. Davies succeeded him and still retains his place, with T. "W. Davies, B.A., as 
classical tutor. Llangollen College dates from 1802, Drs. John Pritchard and Hugh 
Jones having served it as presidents, but since the death of the latter, G. Davies is 
the sole tutor. In order that the Churches may secure all possible advantages from 
the Colleges of the Principality, the managers of the above-named three colleges 
have affiliated them more closely with those institutions ; the students of Pontypool 
now obtain their classical training at Cardiff, those of Haverfordwest at Aberystwith, 
and those of Llangollen at Bangor. 

The Baptist Building Fund fur Wales, organized in 1S62, with a capital of 
£6,932 lis., for the purpose of making free loans to the Churches, payable in annual 
installments of ten per cent., is doing a grand work. The Welsh Baptist Lmion, 
formed in 1866, now representing the whole of the Welsh Churches, is a useful 
body. It meets annually in August or September, pubbshes a bi-monthly magazine. 
and an Annual Hand-Book for the denomination. Besides these, the Baptists pub- 
lish three monthlies and one weekly. According to the returns for the year 1SS6, 
their numerical strength in Wales is : Churches, 590; members, 73, S2S ; attendance 
on Sunday-schools, 74,830. The denomination is thoroughly united, marches boldly 
forward upholding God's word as the only rule of faith, against all human ritual 
and tradition ; with a very bright future in view. 

This chapter cannot be completed without a few sketches of some of the fathers 
and leaders in Welsh Baptist history, but these must be limited to a few repre- 
sentative men of their several classes. 

Joshua Thomas is celebrated as their leading historian. He was born at Caio, 

1719, but at the age of twenty resided at Hereford. At that time he did not profess 
19 



258 THOMAS, WILLIAMS, RHEES. 

religion, but yet walked thirteen miles to Leominster to worship with the Baptists 
every other Sunday. He was baptized there in 1710, and entered the ministry in 
1716 ; he afterward became pastor at Leominster, where he remained for fifty 
years. He wrote a ' History of the Welsh Baptists,' also a ' History of the Baptist 
Association in Wales,' being better acquainted with these subjects than any man of 
his day. 

William Williams, justice of the peace and a deputy lieutenant of the coun- 
ties of Cardigan and Pembroke. Born, 1732 ; died, 1799. His parents were 
wealthy Episcopalians, but, leaving him an orphan at the age of six, he was 
educated in the best manner under trustees. He married young but lost his wife, 
and was led to Christ by this affliction, entering the ministry. In Cardigan he built 
a commodious chapel and filled it with devout hearers. He labored under the 
odious Test and Corporation Acts, but yet was appointed to civil office under the 
government. The law required him to qualify by taking the Lord's Supper in the 
Established Church within a year of his appointment, and annually thereafter, but 
he filled his office for many years without submission to this test of conformity. He 
moved in the higher classes of society, and for a long period served as Chairman of 
the Quarter Sessions, and when he died his loss as a magistrate was mourned as 
national. . 

Morgan John Rhys was the Welsh Baptist hero of religious liberty. Born 
at Graddfa, 1760; after his baptism at Hengoed he went to the Bristol Academy, 
and entered the ministry in 1787. Before going to Bristol he established night- 
schools and Sunday-schools, far and near, teaching the pupils himself gratis, in 
chapels, barns and other places, and supplying them with books. When he became 
a pastor he aroused the denomination to the need of Sunday-schools before any 
other denomination had taken them up in Wales. Aided by others he founded 
a society in 1792 for the circulation of the Bible in France, believing that the 
Revolution had prepared that people for the Gospel. But this work was arrested 
by the war of 1793. This is the first attempt known to form a Bible Society 
for purely missionary purposes, as he connected with it a mission to Bologne. 
This failing, he left France and threw himself into the effort to maintain the 
doctrine of political liberty and religious equality in Wales. He established 
the ' Cylchgrawn,' a magazine, which eulogized the American Constitution, and 
demanded that religious support in Wales should be patterned by that in the 
United States. Spies were put upon his track, and an officer from London ap- 
peared at Caermarthen for his arrest. His landlord misled the officer, and gave 
Rhees a hint that he had better make for Liverpool, whence he left for America, 
where he was welcomed by Dr. Rogers, of Philadelphia. There he took a band 
of Welsh emigrants into the Allegheny Mountains in 1797, and organized them 
into a Church at Beulah, Cambria County, Pa. He died at Somerset, December 
7th, 1801. 






JOSEPH HARRIS. 



239 



Joseph Harris (Gomer), pastor at Swansea, was born 1773. So great was 
his thirst for knowledge, that, without any early educational advantages, he became 
one of the chief men of letters in the nation and wielded great influence. He 
first made his' mark as a controversial theologian in various pamphlets, and in 
his work on ' The Proper Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ,' published in 1816. 
Bishop Burgess and other eminent members of the English clergy pronounced high 

eulogies upon this book. At- 
that time no magazine or week- 
ly was published in Welsh, and 
in 1814 Harris established the 
' Star of Gomer,' a weekly, in 
that language. As a weekly this 
enterprise failed, but in 1818 he 
started a monthly under the same 
name, which met with great 
success. It was so broad and 
thorough in its discussions that 
it attained national celebrity, 
and earned for him the title 
i ' Father of Welsh Journalism.' 
He also published a Welsh and. 
English Bible ; and a hymn book 
for his own denomination, which 
is yet in use. He came to his 
grave in sorrow, some say of a 
broken heart, for the loss of his 
favorite son, whose memoirs he 
wrote in grief and tears, making its composition one of the most touching pro- 
ductions in the Welsh tongue. 

Christmas Evans, the prince of Welsh preachers, was born on the 25th of De- 
cember, 1766, and named after that day. His father was very poor, and died when 
Christmas was about the age of nine, leaving him in such neglect that he could not 
read when he was fifteen. Mourning this ignorance he resolved to learn, and soon 
plodded through ' Pilgrim's Progress.' At eighteen he was converted and united 
with the Arminian Presbyterians. Soon he held religious services in cottages, 
having memorized one of Bishop Beveridge's sermons and one of Mr. Roland's. 
These were delivered in such a wonderful manner, that when a hearer knew them 
to be mere recitations, he remarked that ' there must be something in that un- 
lettered boy, for the prayer was as good as the sermon.' Alas ! master, that also 
was taken from a book. Evans went to school for a time to Rev. Mr. Davis, 
but, having no means to prosecute his studies, started for England to labor as a 




CHRISTMAS EVANS. 



260 CHRISTMAS EVANS. 

farmer in the harvest-field. Discouraged, he nearly abandoned the idea of enter- 
ing the ministry, and, in fact, became almost indifferent to religion. Just then 
he fell into the hands of a mob, and received a blow which left him insensible, 
and his right eye blind for life. His narrow escape aroused him to new diligence, 
and shortly after he was immersed on his faith in Christ in the river Duar, by Rev. 
Timothy Thomas, and united with the Baptist Church at Aberduar. At the age of 
twenty-two he was ordained at Lleyn as the pastor of five small Baptist Churches 
there. Frequently he walked twenty miles and preached four or five times on the 
'Sabbath with marked results. He was captivated by the preaching of Robert 
Roberts, a hunch-backed Calvinistic Methodist, of marked eccentricities, and said 
"that from him he had ' obtained the keys of the level,' whatever that may be. In a 
short time Evans evinced remarkable preaching powers. He traveled on foot 
through town and village, crowds gathering into chapels and burying-grounds, on 
"week-days and in the midst of harvest, while many were converted and immersed. 
-His fame spread on the wings of the winds, and multitudes followed him from place 
to place. 

In 1791 he removed to the isle of Anglesea, taking charge of the two Baptist 
Churches there, on a salary of £17 per annum. Besides the two chapels, he had 
eight preaching stations and no other Baptist minister near him. The Churches 
were in a cold and distracted state, but his labors were soou followed by powerful 
religious revivals. In 1794 he went far to attend the meetings of the Association, 
which met at Velin Yoel, in the open air and in the hottest of weather. Two 
ministers had preached in a tedious way and the heat had almost stupefied the people, 
when Evans commenced the third sermon. In a few minutes the people began to 
weep and praise God, to leap and clap their hands for joy, and the greatest excite- 
ment continued through the entire day and night, the crowd saying to each other : 
' The one-eyed man of Anglesea is a prophet sent from God ! ' For years he attend- 
ed the meetings of this body, and here he preached his famous sermon on the de- 
moniac of Gadara. That sermon held the vast throng spell-bound for three hours; 
for Christmas drew such a picture before them as even Jean Paul Richter never 
drew. The vast throng was beside itself. Numbers threw themselves on the 
ground, as if an earthquake rocked beneath them. They had a clear vision of the 
naked maniac, full of burning anger and wild gesture, with fiend's eyes, fierce and 
full of flame. They saw his paroxysms which broke the chains that held him, as 
threads of tow, when he bounded away like a wild beast, to leap upon harmless 
men. He lived in rocks, slept in tombs with the dead, haunted these dismal abodes 
like a midnight ghost and made them echo with loud blasphemies. All feared him 
as a demon and none dared approach him. His wife was broken-hearted, and 
his children desolate. In lucid moments he was gentle, then he roared like a 
Hon, howled like a wolf, raved like a tiger, the terror of Gadara; until Jesus 
came, quelled the storm, restored the tortured mind and filled the land with joy. 



HIS PREACHING AND PERSON. 261 

Then came his picture of the swine wallowing in destruction, the punishment of 
their selfish owners and great doctrinal truths, which produced an effect scarcely 
credible, but for full and clear testimony. 

In 1826, when the preaching stations in Anglesea had increased to scores and the 
preachers to twenty-eight, he left that island and settled as pastor at Caerphilly, where 
he soon added one hundred and forty members to his Church by baptism. He re- 
mained here but two years when he removed to Cardiff, and in two years more to 
Caernarvon, where he contended with great difficulties from church debts and dis- 
sension. When on a collecting tour for that Church he died suddenly at Swansea, 
July 19th, 1838, in the seventy-second year of his age and the fifty -fourth of his won- 
derful ministry. As he passed from earth he said : ' I am leaving you ; I have 
labored in the sanctuary fifty-three years, and this is my comfort, that I have never 
labored without blood in the basin ! ' AVith his last breath he referred to a verse 
in an old AVelsh hymn, then waved his hand as if with Elijah in the chariot of fire, 
and cried : ' Wheel about, coachman ; drive on ! ' 

He had preached one hundred and sixty-three times before Baptist Associations 
and paid forty visits to South Wales, so that he held front rank in the Welsh min- 
istry for more than half a century without a stain on his moral character. In per- 
son lie stood about six feet high, with an athletic frame— a very Anakira — and his 
head covered with thick, coarse, black hair. His bearing was dignified, notwith- 
standing an unwieldy gait, arising from an inecmality of limbs, inducing an able 
writer to say that ' he appeared like one composed on the day after a great battle 
out of the scattered members of the slain;' or as a Yorkshire man expressed it to 
the writer, ' like a book taken in numbers, with some wanting.' His face betok- 
ened great intelligence and amiability, his eye-brows were dark and heavily arched, 
and his one, large, dreamy eye was very brilliant. Robert Hall said of him that he 
was ' the tallest, stoutest, greatest man he ever saw ; that he had but one e} r e, if it 
could be called an eye ; it was more properly a brilliant star ; it shined like Venus ! 
and would light an army through a forest on a dark night,' This evangelical seraph 
of one eye, like all seraphs, had a warm and cpiick temperament, held under 
perfect control ; and though his sustained power of imagination was astonishing, he 
was veiy dignified in debate. His piety was simple, modest and ardent. The 
writer thinks that one of the best tests of true power in a preacher is the character 
of his public prayers, and once asked an old and intelligent Welshman who had often 
heard Evans, to describe these. He replied : ' They were commonl}- short, but he 
seldom stopped until the tears rolled down his cheeks from his one eye and the 
empty socket of the other, while pleading for the special influences of the Holy 
Spirit that day.' Here was a secret of his eloquence which cannot be described 
more than the warm breathings of seraphim can be depicted. His voice had great 
compass and melody, his gestures were easy and forceful, and his composition 
crowded with metaphor and allegory. His style was more than original, it was 



262 TIMOTHY THOMAS. 

unique, bearing the stamp of high genius, as every sentence carried his own spirit 
and its expression to others in the nicest shadings of fervent thought. The press 
has given us two hundred of his sermons, which were methodical and strong in their 
unity. The Bible was as real to him as his Own life, and hence, he drew the his- 
tory and doctrine of the cross in true lines. He was more luminous in exposition, 
and fuller of imagery than Whitefield. His descriptions were pure inspirations of 
the imagination, and his sentences were the joint language of feeling and logic. 
After the ideal of Horace, men wept when he shed real tears. He breathed that 
vehement thought and passion into his speech which Longinus called ' a divine 
frenzy.' But his preaching was governed by a sense of obligation to God and the 
grandeur of love to man. These took his own soul by storm and stormed the souls 
of others. His one theme was Christ, his one aim to save guilty men, pulling them 
out of the fire, and so his pulpit power increased to the last. God put honor upon 
him, as he always has upon such men, 'and much people was added unto the Lord.' 

John Jenkins was another splendid specimen of self-educated ministers in 
Wales. His parents were very lowly and he never spent a day in school. At the 
age of fourteen he found one of John Rhees's evening-school books and learned 
to read the Welsh Bible. The next year he was baptized at Llanwenarth, and 
became a pastor at the age of twenty-one on a salary of £3 per year. Thus hum- 
bling himself, in 1808 he was exalted to a salary of £16 per annum as pastor at 
Hengoed. Ihere he built up one of the strongest Churches in the principality, 
and became a leading writer in the denomination. In 1811 he published a body 
of divinity under the title of the ' Silver Palace,' and followed it, in 1831, by a 
Commentary of the whole Bible. The Lewisburg University conferred upon him 
the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1852 ; and he died in Christ on June 5, 1853, 
aged seventy-four years. 

Timothy Thomas, of Aberduar, was a most robust servant of Christ ; the son 
of the ' Thunderer ' of the same name. He was rough and ready, loved to ride the 
best horse in Wales, and made the whole country his parish. He celebrated his 
baptismal services in the open air, and would smite into the dust any disturber of 
bis services, holding up his license in one hand and his Bible in the other, demand- 
ing ' order ' by virtue of two warrants, one from the King of England and the 
other from the King of Heaven. When he was fourteen years of age his 
father died, but his father's mantle fell upon him. On returning from his funeral 
his mother mourned, saying, ; that the family altar had fallen and there was no one 
to build it up.' Timothy replied : ' Mother, it shall not fall ; ' and that night he 
conducted worship in the stricken home. After his ordination, in 1772-73, he went 
everywhere preaching the word. During his ministry he baptized about 2,000 
converts, and with a touch of honest pride he loved to name amongst them Christ- 
mas Evans. He died in 1840, aged eighty -six years, protesting that there was noth- 
ing in his life worth recording for another generation. 



JOHN WILLIAMS, THE TRANSLATOR. 



263 



John Williams was the thorough scholar and translator of the Hew Testament 
into modern Welsh. He was born at Waen in 1806, and his youth was character- 
ized by many eccentricities, one of which was that he constantly hid himself in the 
] ledges and woods with his books, and at the age of twenty, without a master, had 
acquired a good knowledge of English and Latin, with considerable attainments in 
Greek, Hebrew and mathematics. At twenty-one he published an English grammar in 
Welsh and English, which brought him pressing invitations to enter the Episcopal 
ministry ;. but he was ordained a home missionary amongst the Baptists in 1831. 
He devoted himself, however, to the translation of the New Testament and finished 




JOSHUA WATKINS. 



TIMOTHY THOMAS. 



the task in four years. To reach the simple sense of the original by the best texts 
was his first aim, and his next, its faithful translation into his mother-tongue. Con- 
viction obliged him to give an immersion;st version, and while nobody pretended 
that his renderings were unfaithful, the cry was raised that he had made, a ' Baptist 
Bible.' He expressed the act of baptism by the word trochi, which has no ecclesi- 
astical meaning, and answers to dip, or immerse, in English, instead of retaining the 
word iedydd, which by ecclesiastical use has come to mean many things in Welsh, 
as the word baptize does in English. He suffered the greatest possible abuse, as if 
he were a God-fearing criminal. Wales produced few harder workers or more 
diligent inquirers after the truth. But the coarse abuse of men who could not 
understand how an honest scholar can hold himself responsible to God only deeply 
wounded his loyal soul. He was retiring, modest, unobtrusive, and his health sank 
under the cruel calumny of many of his own brethren. He died in 1856, at the age 
of but fifty years. 



264 THOMAS BEES DA VIES. 

Thomas Rhys Davies was a character, known amongst the irreverent as 'Old 
Black Cap,' because he wore a velvet cap in the pulpit. For years he stood second 
to Christinas Evans in popularity. He itinerated, and so great was his work that 
he said there were few rivers, brooks, or tanks in Wales in which he had not bap- 
tized. His wife being wealthy, he sustained himself. Some disagreement with the 
Baptists led to his expulsion in 1818, and he spent about seven years amongst the 
Wesleyans, with whom he was very useful ; but he delighted in telling them that 
he was ' a Baptist dyed in the wool.' At one of their great missionary meetings he 
said : ' The Baptists think much of themselves, but they cannot do all the work in 
the world. We Wesleyans must be in the field, too ; but as to that, we shall all be 
Baptists in the end.' When he returned to the Baptists he said to his Methodist 
brethren : ' Good-bye, I am going home.' He was welcomed back and labored suc- 
cessfully. During forty-seven years he preached 13,115 sermons, averaging above 
five a week and left a minute record of the time, place and text of each sermon. 
He preached the same sermon over and over again for twenty times, and the people 
were newly delighted each time, and each discourse came to be known by some 
peculiar name. His sermons were so natural that they seemed to have been born 
with him, and he said they would ' always go, because he kept them in a safe 
place.' They were quaint productions and antithetic, but clear and pointed. Then 
he flavored them with homely mother- wit and delivered them in an easy oratory, 
which made them impressive, despite a slight impediment in his speech, so that 
there was a great mystery about his eloquence. He best describes himself when 
about visiting London. Writing to a deacon there, who did not know him, but 
was to meet him, he says : 

' At Euston Station, December 3d. 1847, and about nine o'clock in the evening, 
expect the arrival by train of a gray-headed old man ; very tall, like the ancient 
Britons, and without" an outward ' blemish, like a Jewish high-priest. Like Elijah, 
he will wear a blue mantle, not shaggy, but superfine, and like Jacob, he will have 
a staff in his hand, but will not be 'lame, it is hoped. But most especially, he will 
have a white string to his hat, fastened to his coat button. There will be many 
there with black strings, but his will be white. Let the friend ask, ',' Are you 
Davies ? " and his answer will be, " Yes." ' 

He started on a preaching tour through South Wales in 1859, but told his 
friends that he was going there to die, and to be buried in the same grave with 
Christmas Evans. On the 22d of July he preached his last sermon at Morristown, 
near Swansea, when he was taken sick. He said : 'I am very ill. Let me die in 
the bed where Christmas Evans died.' That was impracticable. But on the follow- 
ing Sunday he fell asleep, and was buried in Evans's grave ! 

Robert Ellis was a prodigy, after his order. Although nine months' train- 
ing under John Williams was all the schooling that he ever had, he excelled as 
an antiquarian, bard, lecturer, preacher and biblical interpreter. He came to be 
regarded as an authority in almost every branch of Welsh literature, and was one 



ELLIS, MORGAN, J. E. JONES. 



263 




ROBERT ELLIS. 



of the most idiomatic Welsh 
writers of his day. He was the 
author of many poems, and of 
' Five Lectures on Baptism,' but 
his greatest work was his ' Com- 
mentary of the New Testament,' 
in three volumes. Born, 1812 ; 
died, 1875. 

William Morgan, D.D., one 
of the ablest ministers of North 
Wales, devoted his life to the inter- 
ests of the Baptists at Holyhead, 
from the year 1825. He was 
the first biographer of Christmas 
Evans, and published three vol- 
umes of sermons. The George- 
town College, Kentucky, honored 
him with the title of D.D. After 
a very useful ministry, he died in 
1873. 

John Emlyn Jones, M.A., LL.D., was born in 1820. He was pastor of Bap- 
tist Churches at Nebo, Cardiff, Merthyr Tydvil and Llandudno. He was a very 
eloquent preacher, and distinguished himself as an author in works of theology, 
history and general literature ; also as the translator of Gill's Commentary into 
Welsh. He was a poet of eminence, 
attaining the honor of Chair-Bard, 
B. B. D., by winning a chair at Den- 
bigh, and another at Llanerchymedd. 
He prepared a Topographical Diction- 
ary of the whole world, but left it incom- 
plete. He died in 1873. His Doctor's 
degree was conferred by the University 
of Glasgow. 

Hugh Jones, D.D., was born at An- 
glesea, July 10th, 1831. His parents 
possessed unusual talents, especially his 
mother. He was baptized at Llanfachreth 
by Rev. B. D. Roberts at the age of four- 
teen, and preached his first sermon in what 
the Welsh call ' Gyfeillach,' the weekly 
experience meeting, which is greatly william morgan, d.d. 




266 



DR. HUGH JONES. 



prized in their Churches. His first public discourse was preached in 1851, and he en- 
tered the college at Haverfordwest in 1853. There he remained for four years, and 
became proficient in mathematics, the classics and Hebrew. He wished to enter the 
foreign mission work, but was prevented by ill health. In 1857 he became associate 
pastor to Mr. Griffiths at Llan- 
dudno, and remained there for 
two years, when he took the same 
service for Dr. Pritchard at Llan- 
gollen. The Baptist College was 
established there in 1862, and 
these co-pastors were appointed 
co-tutors, Mr. Jones being classi- 
cal tutor. Dr. Pritchard resigned 
his connection both with the 
Church and the College in 1866, 
and Mr. Jones became principal 
of the College, resigning his pas- 
toral relation. Under his labors 
the institution attained great 
prosperity, but he overworked 
himself, and in 1877 was obliged 
to seek relief and health on the 
Continent, where he appeared 
to improve and returned to his 
post. In 1883 his health sud- 
denly failed again, and on the 
28th of May he was unexpect- 
edly called to his reward above. He left a widow and eleven children to mourn 
their loss, and in about two years his children became full orphans, for their 
mother died and was buried in the same grave with their father. In every re- 
spect Dr. Jones was a man of rare mark. His intellect was keen, his will strong, 
his heart large and his application close. His pure character and quiet courage, 
his simple habits and genial manliness, endeared him to all who knew him, and he 
has left a deep impression on the Baptist interests of the principality. His thorough 
consecration to Christ and profound biblical scholarship are abundantly seen in his 
works, ' The Bible and its Interpretation,' and the ' Act of Baptism.' 

These sketches of Welsh Baptists might be continued at great length, but a 
long list of illustrious names must be passed in silence, as well as all that relates to 
the influence of "Welsh Baptists in other parts of Great Britain, for their laymen and 
ministers have filled the highest posts of influence and usefulness in all parts of the 




HUGH JONES, D.D. 



United Kingdom. 



The above are sufficient to show the strong elements which our 



THE CHURCHES PROSPEROUS. 267 

principles have developed in Welsh character. They bring out its vigor of intellect, 
its heroic courage, its high moral sentiment, its glow of holy feeling and its benevo- 
lent zeal. When we take into account the soft and liquid flow of the Welsh lan- 
guage, the patriotism of the Welsh people, their devotion to civil and religious liberty, 
and their enthusiastic religious emotion, we are not astonished at their success ; nor 
can we wonder at the great molding influence which they have exerted upon the 
Baptist Churches of the New World. 

The statistics of the United Kingdom, including the Channel Islands, shows 
2,713 churches, 315,939 members, with 1,893 pastors. 

The Baptist Churches in Wales were never in a more prosperous condition 
than at the present time. They not only stand firmly by the truth, but year by 
year they are resisting that anomaly of the nineteenth century, the incubus of a 
State Church. Since the disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Church 
the Welsh people feel more and more the galling yoke, and are attempting to shake 
it off with greater spirit. Recently, not only the Baptists, but the Independents 
and Calvinistic Methodists have arisen with almost one accord to resist the enforce- 
ment of tithes in behalf of the Established Church. The 'tithe-war ' as it is called, 
broke out recently in the parish of Llanarmon, and distraint upon the goods of the 
farmers there has aroused the resistance of all Non-conformists. It is strange that 
this blot upon Christianity should have remained unwiped out so long, but this relic 
of barbarism must soon disappear in Wales. At this moment the auctioneer is sell- 
ing confiscated property in all directions, and every fall of his hammer drives a new 
nail into the coffin of the politico-ecclesiastical State Church, but not before its time 
to fall. In 1868 compulsory church rates were abolished, 1880 the Burial Act was 
passed, relieving Dissenters from abominable annoyances in burying their dead, and 
it is not meet that the twentieth century should be disgraced by one vestige of 
Welsh oppression in this direction. It is strange that the Welsh have endured this 
yoke so long, and the sooner they rise in their strength and shake it off the better. 



THE AMERICAN BAPTISTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE COLONIAL PERIOD. PILGRIMS AND PURITANS. 

THE passage of the Mayflower over the Atlantic was long and rough. Often 
before its bosom had been torn by keels seeking the golden fleece for 
kings, but now the kings themselves were on board this frail craft, bringing the 
golden fleece with them, and the old deep had all that she could do to bear this 
load of royalty safely over. Stern as she was, the men borne on her waves were 
sterner. More than a new empire was intrusted to her care, a new freedom. 
' What ailed thee, O sea ? ' When this historic ship came to her moorings, not un- 
like the vessel tossed on Galilee, she was freighted with principles, convictions, 
institutions and laws. These should first govern a quarter of the globe here, and 
then go back to the Old World to effect its regeneration and shape its future. The 
Pilgrims knew not that the King of all men was so signally with them in the 
bark, and would send them forth as the fishers of Gennesaret were sent, on an 
errand of revolution. In intellect, conscience and true soul-greatness, these quiet 
founders of a new nation were highly gifted, so that song and story will send their 
names down to the end of time on the bead-roll of fame. The monarchs of the 
earth have already raised their crowns in reverence to their greatness, and they are 
canonized in the moral forces which impelled and followed them. 

Imperial bombast in James I. had chuckled over this band of strong-souled 
ones. He ' had peppered them soundly,' as he loved to boast, and ' harried them ' 
out of his land in the bitterness of their grief ; but when their sturdy feet pressed 
Plymouth Rock they had a conscience void of offense toward Holland, England 
and God. An invisible hand had guided the helm of the Mayflower to a rock 
from which, in a wintry storm, a group of simple-hearted heroes, with bare heads, 
could proclaim a Church without a bishop and a State without a king. Next to 
their adoration of the Lord of Hosts, their great religious thought at that moment 
was English Separatism. This thought had bearings in embryo upon the future 
births of time, in the genesis of such truths as only mature in the throes of ages. 
The founders of Plymouth were not Puritans, or Non-conformists, but Separatists, 
who had paid a great price for their freedom, and had come from an independent 
congregation in Leyden. Their great germinal idea was deep-seated, for their love 
of liberty had been nourished with the blood of a suffering brotherhood. They 




REV. J. SPINTHER JAMES. HON. H. G. JONES. 

H. C. VEDDER. 
REV. W. W. EVERTS, JR. REV. G. E. HORR, JR. 



LANDING AT PLYMOUTH. 269 

ranked with the most advanced thinkers and lovers of the radical principles of 
their age, and yet, though they were honestly feeling their way to those principles 
in all their primal simplicity, the} 7 had not already attained to their full use. 
They intended to be as honest and as honorable as the skies above them. History 
has laid the charge of rigid sternness at their door, but they evidently established 
their new colony in love to God and man. 

Fuller, Collier, and several other old writers show that the Brownists, from 
whom they sprang, caught their idea of absolute Church independency from the 
Dutch Baptists. Weingarten makes this strong statement : 

' The perfect agreement between the views of Brown and those of the 
Baptists as far as the nature of a Church is concerned, is certainly proof enough 
that he borrowed this idea from them, though in his " True Declaration " of 1584 
he did not deem it advisable to acknowledge the fact, lest he should receive in 
addition to all the opprobrious names heaped upon him, that of Anabaptist. In 
1571 there were no less than 3,925 Dutchmen in Norwich.' x Also Scheffer says : 
' That Brown's new ideas concerning the nature of the Church opened to him in 
the circle of the Dutch Baptists in Norwich. Brandt, in his " Reformation in the 
Low Countries,"' shows that when Brown's Church was dissolved by dissentions 
at Middleburg, in the Netherlands, where the Baptists were very numerous, some 
of his people fell in with the Baptists.' 2 And Johnson, pastor of the Separatist 
Church at Amsterdam, wrote, in 1606, that 'divers' of that Church who had been 
driven from England ' fell into the errors of the Anabaptists, which were too 
common in those countries.' 3 

Bishop Sanderson wrote, in 1681, that Whitgift and Hooker did ' long foresee 
and declare their fear that if Puritanism should prevail amongst us, it would soon 
draw in Anabaptism after it. . . . These good men judged right ; they only con- 
sidered, as prudent men, that Anabaptism had its rise from the same principles the 
Puritans held, and its growth from the same courses they took, together with the 
natural tendency of their principles and practices toward it.' He then says that if 
the ground be taken that the Scriptures are the only rule so as 'nothing might 
lawfully be done without express warrant, either from some command or example 
therein contained, the clew thereof, if followed as far as it would lead, would 
certainly in time carry them as far as the Anabaptists were then gone.' 4 

This clear-minded prelate perfectly understood the logical and legitimate result 
of Baptist principles, and this result the Plymouth men had reached on the ques- 
tion of Church independency, but they were still learners on the question of full 
liberty of conscience aside from the will of magistrates. 

The permanent landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth began Dec. 20th, 1620 
(O. S.), but on the 11th of November they had entered into a solemn ' compact,' thus : 

' Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian 
faith, and the honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony 
in the northern parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in 
the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into 
a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of 
the ends aforesaid ; and by virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame such just 
and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and officers, from>time to time, as 
shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony ; 
ucto which we promise all due submission and obedience.' 



270 THEIR LIBERTIES IN HOLLAND. 

For about a month after founding the settlement their government took a patri- 
archal form, with the governor, John Carver, as the head. A legislature was not 
formed till 1639. Graham says : ' The supreme legislative body was composed of all 
the freemen who were members of the church,' and full liberty of conscience was not 
allowed. Winslow tells Winthrop, that in October, 1645, Vassal moved the court ' To 
allow and maintain full and free tolerance of religion, to all men who would preserve 
the civil peace and submit to government. . . . But our governor (Bradford) and 
divers of us having expressed the sad consequences would follow . . . would not allow 
it to come to vote, as being that indeed would eat out the power of godliness.' Wins- 
low denounced this measure as ' carrion,' and its passage as a ' judgment of God,' from 
which he must if passed, instead of groaning under it, find rest in the other colony. 

They themselves had first tasted the sweets of civil and religious liberty in 
the Netherlands, under the advanced Christian idea of government for man as such. 
They had availed themselves of that liberty which Christian patriots, and amongst 
them the Dutch Baptists, had suffered so much to purchase ; and yet they had 
failed to learn the primary lesson of full liberty of conscience in civil government, 
as the first right of each man in the State. Their mistake was inexcusable on the 
popular plea that this idea was in advance of their age. But for that idea and its 
practical use they would not have founded Plymouth ; for without its shield they 
could not have found an asylum in Holland, when they were driven from their 
own home in England. Their liberty in Holland, while, in fact, the greatest 
possible reality to them, was treated in Plymouth as a mere impractical ideal, when 
they came to found a 'civil body politic' of their own. And this is rendered the 
more remarkable from the fact, that they were placed under no chartered re- 
ligious restriction themselves. When they applied to England for a charter in 
1618, Sir John Worsingham asked : ' Who shall make your ministers ? ' Their 
representative (' S. B.') answered : ' The power of making [them] was in the 
Church, to be ordained by the imposition of hands, by the fittest instruments they 
have ; it must be either in the Church or from the pope, and the pope is Anti- 
christ.' That point was waived, therefore, and Felt says that S. B. 'asked his 
worship what good news he had for me to write to-morrow' (to Robinson and 
Brewster). ' He told me good news, for both the kings majesty and the bishops 
have consented.' The patent which was given them was taken in the name of 
John Wincob, a Christian gentleman who intended to accompany them, but who 
failed to do so, hence they could not legally avail themselves of its benefits, and 
■really came without a patent. The petulance of the king would give them none, 
and they left without his authority, saying : ' If there is a settled purpose to do us 
wrong, it is easy to break a seal, though it be as broad as a house floor.' Felt says 
again: 'The Pilgrims are aware that their invalid patent does not privilege them 
to be located so far north, and grants them " only the general leave of his majesty 
for the free exercise of the liberty of conscience in the public worship of God." '" 



THE PURITANS. 271 

In any case, therefore, with the patent or without it, they were left nntrammeled 
in the exercise of their liberty of conscience, both as it regards the form of 
religion which any citizen might choose, and his right to citizenship without any 
order of religion, after the Holland pattern. Under their own 'compact' then, 
they first formed a ' civil body politic,' and then a Church, the colony to be jointly 
governed by the officers of both. In some aspects of this union the State was 
rather absorbed into the Church than united to it, but the elders and magistrates 
were so united that together they enforced the duties both of the first and second 
tables of the Ten Commandments. The elders did not always consult the civil 
functionary in Church matters, but the civil functionary did not act in important 
public affairs without consulting the elders. 

The Puritans, who settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1628, eight 
years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, were another people entirely. They 
had paid a less price for their religious freedom and were less tolerant in spirit ; 
while in regard to the separation of the Church from the State they stood sub- 
stantially with the Pilgrims. The Plymouth men had separated from the Church 
of England as a corrupt and fallen body, but the Puritans continued in communion 
with that Church, although they refused to conform to many of its practices and 
denounced them warmly ; and hence were known as ISTon-conformists or Puritans. 
They believed firmly in the union of the Church and State as a political necessity, 
while the Pilgrims believed in it as a spiritual necessity, and in turn they were de- 
nounced by the Puritans as ' schismatics.' While the men of Massachusetts Bay 
were on shipboard, they sent an address to their friends in England calling the 
Established Church there their ' dear mother,' from whose bosom they had : sucked ' 
the hope of salvation. When the Atlantic stretched between them, however, they 
organized Congregational Churches and established them by law, limiting political 
suffrage to membership therein, obliging all citizens to pay for their support, 
coercing all into conformity therewith, forbidding all dissenting Churches, and en- 
forcing these prohibitions and requirements by penalties of disfranchisement, fine, 
imprisonment, scourging and banishment, the same as in cases of civil crime. All 
is substantially summed up in this decree, passed May 18, 1631, by the general 
court : ' No man shall be admitted to the body politic but such as are members 
of some of the Churches within the limits of the same,' that is, the Colony. 

The Puritans having equal aversion to the Separatists of Leyden and to the 
assumptions of the Church of England, they aimed at working out a third way ; 
but when they came to put their theory into practice the logic of events brought 
them to substantially the Plymouth position, and as the two colonies came to know 
each other, their prejudices and misunderstandings almost vanished. The agree- 
ment, however, between the men of the ' Bay ' and those of ' Plymouth ' 
concerning the constitution and polity of a Church was never perfect. The 

Plymouth Church order, at first, contained a trace of aristocracy in the ruling 
20 



272 PURITAN ARISTOCRACY. 

eldership, but this only continued during the lives of three men : Brewster, chosen 
in 1609 ; Cushman, in 1649 ; and Faunce, 1657. After that the vital hold of the 
eldership was broken, the constant tendency being toward a pure democracy, giving 
to every member an eqxial voice. The ' Bay ' Churches, on the contrary, gravi- 
tated toward what was called Barrowism, which placed Church power in the 
hands of the elders. But in 1648 the Cambridge platform gave the elders 'the 
power of office,' defined to be the right of ruling and directing the Church. After 
that the eldership became the ruling power in the Churches of New England, 
although this aristocratic tendency was less hearty in the Plymouth colony. The 
leaders in the Churches generally were from the higher walks of life, and were 
not prepared to admit the principle of a pure democracy in Church or State. 
They stood with Milton, Locke and Lightfoot in intelligence and literature, with 
Cromwell, Hampden and Pym in statesmanship. It is computed that the 21,000 
persons who came into New England between 1630-40 brought with them 
£500,000 — $2,500,000, which, reckoning money as worth then six times more 
than it is to-day, they brought property to the value of $15,000,000, and with this 
all the conservatism which wealth implied in those days. The most of this money was 
brought by the Puritans, as the Pilgrims were very poor. So long as the ' body poli- 
tic ' was one with the Church, their joint polity must be more rigorous and concen- 
trated than the democratic form allowed, and so in a very short time proscription, 
bigotry and intolerance asserted themselves bravely. Bishop Peck, an admirer of the 
Puritans, who is ready to excuse their faults whenever he can, is compelled to 
say : ' It is both curious and lamentable to see the extreme spirit of Protestantism 
reaching the very prescriptive bigotry of Romanism, and the brave assertion of 
Puritan rights resulting in the bitter persecuting tolerance of prelacy ; and yet 
historical fidelity compels the admission. We must confess, however reluctantly, 
that the spirit of proscription and intolerance in New England is exactly identical 
with the same spirit which we found in Virginia.' 6 

Still it is a pure mockery of historical truth, and an unjust reflection upon 
the Puritans themselves, to put in the special plea of modern discovery that the 
Massachusetts Bay Company was a mere business company, a body of ' mercenary 
adventurers,' as their worst enemies loved to brand them. The charter which they 
first received of James, and which Charles enlarged, made them a ' body politic,' 
so far as a colony could be, under which they both asserted and exercised the 
right of self-government in home affairs for more than half a century. Their 
charter endowed them with power to make laws, to choose civil officers, to admin- 
ister allegiance to new citizens, to exact oaths, to support military officers from 
the public treasury, and to make defensive war, all independent of the crown. 
Nay, they made some offences capital, which were not capital in England. So 
thoroughly did they understand these rights and determine to defend them, that 
in 1634, when England appointed the archbishops and ten members of the Privy 



THEY FOUNDED A STATE. 273 

Council, with power to call in all patents of the plantations, to make laws, raise 
tithes for ministers, to remove governors, and inflict punishment even to death, 
Massachusetts Bay flew to arms, and rightly, too, as a Commonwealth, and not as a 
business corporation. All the pastors were convened with the civil officers of the 
colony to answer the question : ' What we ought to do if a general governor shall 
be sent out of England ? ' Their unanimous answer was : ' We ought not to accept 
him, but defend our lawful possessions, if we are able ; otherwise to avoid or pro- 
tract.' And with the spirit, not of traders and mercinaries, but of patriots, they 
began to collect arms and ammunition, to drill and discipline their men, and to 
fortify Castle Island, Charlestown and Dorchester Heights. The General Court 
forbade the circulation of farthings, made bullets a legal tender for a farthing each, 
appointed a military commission, established a strict military discipline, and erected 
a beacon on ' Beacon Hill,' to alarm the country in case of English invasion. More 
than this, the Military Commission was empowered ' to do whatever may be further 
behooveful for the good of this plantation, in case of any war that may befall us.' 
They also required every male resident of sixteen years and over to take the ' Free- 
man's Oath,' and intrusted the Commission with the power of the death penalty. 7 

A facetious writer may be allowed to say that the Puritans came to this 
country ' to worship God according to their own consciences, and to prevent other 
people from worshiping him according to theirn,' 8 and we can pardon his playful 
way of putting this matter. But it is unpardonable in a giave historian to impose 
upon his readers, by belittling these grand men, and underrating their virtues by 
ranking them with those who came here in search of religious liberty for them- 
selves alone. To say that they looked upon their charter only as the title-deed of a 
grasping community holding their possessions by right of fee simple rather than a& 
their only country which they had sworn to protect, is to do them the grossest wrong.. 
They came for another purpose, of the highest and holiest order that liberty and L 
the love of God could inspire. They sought this land not only as an asylum where 
they could be free themselves, but as a home for the oppressed who were strangers 
to. them, else why did they enfranchise all refugees who took the oath and make 
them freemen, too ? According to Felt, Styles, and many others, they founded a 
Christian ' State.' President Styles well said, in 1783 : ' It is certain that civil do- 
minion was but the second motive, religion the primary one, with our ancestors in 
coming hither and settling this land. It was not so much their design to establish 
religion for the benefit of the State, as civil government for the benefit of religion, 
and as subservient, and even necessary, for the peaceable enjoyment and unmolested 
exercise of religion — of that religion for which they fled to these ends of the earth.' 
Their charter under Charles left them on the basis pointed out by Matthew Cradock, 
governor of the company, July 28th, 1629, namely, with ' the transfer of the govern- 
ment of the plantation to those who shall inhabit there,' as well as with liberty 
of conscience, so that they could be as liberal as they pleased in religious matters. 



£74 THEY PERSECUTED ON PRINCIPLE. 

They neither were nor could be chartered as a purely civil nor as a purely spiritnal 
body, but all that related to the rights of man, body and soul, was claimed and 
enjoyed by them under their charter. 

John Cotton understood that the colony possessed all the rights of a ' body 
politic,' with its attendant responsibilities. In his reply to Williams, he says : 

' By the patent certain select men, as magistrates and freemen, have power to 
make laws, and the magistrates to execute justice and judgment amongst the 
people according to such laws. By the patent we have power to erect suchTa gov- 
ernment of the Church as is most agreeable to the word, to the estate of the 
people, and to the gaining of natives, in God's time, first to civility, and then to 
'Christianity. To this authority established by this patent, Englishmen do readily 
submit themselves ; and foreign plantations, the French, the Dutch, the Swedish, 
-do willingly transact their negotiations with us, as with a colony established by the 
-royal authority of the State of England.' 

No fault, therefore, is to be found with the Massaclmsetts Bay authorites for 
the punishment of civil and political offenders, even with banishment and death, 
as in the case of Frost, who was banished for crime in 1632, under the sentence : 
' He shall be put to death,'' if he returned. In 1633 the same thing was repeated in 
the case of Stone, this Commonwealth assuming the highest prerogative that any 
civil power can claim, that over life and death. Twenty distinct cases of banish 
ment from the colony are on record within the first seven years of its settlement, 
fourteen of them occurring within the first year. 

Their wrong lay not in these and similar acts for criminal and political causes, 
but in that they punished men for religious opinions and practices ; under the plea, 
that to hold and express such opinions was a political offense by their laws, although 
the charter made no such demand of them ; but permitted them, had they chosen, to 
extend equal religious rights to all the Christian colonists, with those which they 
exercised themselves. The simple fact is, that they wielded the old justification of 
persecution used by all persecutors from the days of Jesus down : ' We have a law, 
and by our law he ought to die,' without once stopping to ask by what right we 
have such a law. With all their high aims and personal goodness, they repeated the 
old blunder of law-makers, that those who were not one with them in religions faith 
should not exercise the rights of men in the body politic, because they must be and 
were its enemies. There can be but little doubt that with all their high aspirations 
after civil and religious liberty, the late Dr. Geo. E. Ellis, of Boston, stated their 
case with what Dr. Dexter pronounces ' admirable accuracy,' thus : 

' To assume, as some carelessly do, that when Roger Williams and others asserted 
the right and safety of liberty of conscience, they announced a novelty that was 
alarming, because it was a novelty, to the authorities of Massachusetts, is a great 
error. Our fathers were fully informed as to what it was, what it meant ; and they 
were familiar with such results as it wrought in their day. They knew it well, and 
what must come of it ; and they did not like it ; rather they feared and hated it. 
They did not mean to live where it was indulged ; and in the full exercise of their 
intelligence and prudence, they resolved not to tolerate it among them. They 



PERSECUTION OF THE BROWNS. 275 

identified freedom of conscience only with the objectionable and mischievous results 
which came of it. They might have met all around them in England, in city and 
country, all sorts of wild, crude, extravagant and fanatical spirits. They had reason 
to fear that many whimsical and factious persons would come over hither, expecting 
to find an unsettled state of tilings, in which they would have the freest range for 
their eccentricities. They were prepared to stand on the defensive.' 9 

This frank and manly statement of the case is truly historical, because it tells 
the exact truth ; although, perhaps, it never occurred to the men of the Bay, that 
Elizabeth and James had ranked them and their Plymouth brethren with the ' wild, 
crude, extravagant and fanatical spirits ' of their realm. Spencer, Bishop of Norwich, 
had boasted that he would drive every Lollard out of his diocese, or ' Make them hop 
headless, or fry a fagot ; ' and what better had the Puritans been treated in English 
' city and country ? ' The barbarous cruelties which had failed to reduce their con- 
sciences to submission should have suggested to them at least, as incurables them- 
selves, that it might not be their special and bounden duty as magistrates, to crush 
out all eccentric religionists who happened to be ' crude,' ' extravagant ' and ' fanat- 
ical,' as enemies of good civil government. "Whether they were justified in so 
treating those who asserted the right and safety of liberty of conscience, is hardly 
an open question now. So far as appears, the first resistance made to the politico- 
religious law of the colony came from two brothers, John and Samuel Brown, 
members of the Church of England. In 1629 they set up worship in Salem accord- 
ing to the book of Common Prayer, alleging that the governor and ministers were 
already ' Separatists, and would be Anabaptists.' Upon the complaint of the minis- 
ters and by the authority of the governor they were sent back to England. Endicott 
says that their conduct in the matter engendered faction and mutiny. The minis- 
ters declared that they had ' come away from the Common Prayer and ceremonies,' 
and ' neither could nor would use them, because they judged the imposition of these 
things to be sinful corruptions in the worship of God.' 10 The first false step of the 
Puritans of the Bay compelled them to take the second or retreat ; but they now 
proceeded to narrow all admittance into the Commonwealth by the test of religious 
belief, a step which opened a struggle for liberty of conscience, lasting for more 
than two hundred years in Massachusetts. 

This statement of the civil and religious status of the two colonies of Plymouth 
and the Bay seems necessary to a proper understanding of the state of things under 
which Roger Williams, the great apostle of religious liberty, opened the contest, 
which compelled these great and good men to take that last step, which now pro- 
tects every man's conscience in America. The chosen teacher who was to show 
these two bands ' the way of the Lord more perfectly,' as usual, at the cost of great 
suffering, was now brought unexpectedly to their dooi"s. The old record says : 

' The ship Lyon, Mr. "William Pierce master, arrived at Nantasket ; she brought 
Mr. "Williams, a godly minister, with his wife, Mr. Throgmorton, and others with their 
wives and children, about twenty passengers, and about two hundred tons of goods.' 



276 



WILLIAMS IN THE WILDERNESS. 



Roger Williams was born about A. D. 1600, became a scholar in the famous 
Charter House School, and took his degree of Bachelor of Arts at Cambridge in 
1627. He was a stern Puritan and took orders in the Church of England, but was 
obliged to fly to America under the persecutions of Laud. He sailed from Bristol 
on Dec. 1st, 1630, and reached Boston, Mass., on Feb. 5th, 1631. There he 
became teacher in the Church of which John Wilson was pastor, but having become 
a Separatist while crossing the sea, he said that he ' durst not officiate to an unsepa- 
rated people.' He denounced and discarded the Church of England, and insisted 
that the Church in Boston should do the same, whereas it had a semi-fellowship 
with the Episcopal Church. Moreover, as a sound-minded man, he protested that as 
the Colonial Churches were put under the control of the magistrates he foresaw 
that persecution must work in America what it had wrought in England. Hence 




ROGER WILLIAMS AND THE INDIANS. 



lie rebuked those Churches for not avowing themselves Separatists. This rebuke 
stung the authorities of Massachusetts, and they gave him little rest till his banishment. 
In April, 1631, he became teacher to the Church at Salem, when members of the 
Boston Court warned the people of Salem against him as a dangerous man. The 
Salem and Plymouth Churches refused communion with the English Church, and 
Morton says that in one year Williams had filled Salem ' with principles of rigid 
separation and tending to Anabaptistry.' Finding that the Bay Company disturbed 
him at Salem, he withdrew to Plymouth, beyond their jurisdiction, and became the 
assistant pastor of the Church there. Soon Elder Brewster began to fear that 
Williams would run the same course of Anabaptistry which John Smyth had run at 
Amsterdam, and he returned to serve the Church there as successor to Skelton. He 



THE APOSTLE OF SOUL-LIBERTY. 277 

■was a faithful pastor there for several years, but in 1635 the Court of Massachusetts 
banished him from the colony, because he had ' broached and divulged divers new 
and strange opinions against the authority of magistrates and Churches here." His 
crime on this point consisted in holding 'that the civil magistrate's power extends 
only to the bodies and goods and outward state of men,' or, as "Williams himself put 
•it, 'The civil magistrate's dealing in matters of conscience and religion, as also of 
persecuting and hunting any for any matter merely spiritual and religious.' The 
magistrates were to be obeyed in all civil matters, but he called their powers in 
question when they assumed the control of religious affairs. 

Williams was driven out of Massachusetts in October, 1635. For fourteen weeks 
he wandered he knew not where, without bread or bed. That bleak and bitter Xew 
England winter nearly cost him his life, and but for the humanity of the pagan 
Indians must have fallen another martyr to the fiendish tyranny of men who 
called themselves the elect of God. At last he reached the Moshassuc River, 
in what is now the State of Rhode Island, and founded the city of Providence 
in honor of his loving God, of whom he said, he ' has been merciful to me in 
my distress.' His first concern was that this new home in the desert should 
be 'a shelter to persons distressed for conscience.' Hence he and his compeers 
drew up a compact, to which they signed their names, in which they said that 
they promised to submit themselves, 'in active and passive obedience, to all such 
orders or agencies as shall be made for public good of the body in an orderly way, 
by the major consent of the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated 
together into a township, and such others whom they shall admit into the same, 
only in civil tilings.' Tins compact sweeps away at a stroke every silly pretense 
that Williams was banished solely for his personal civil wrongs and not for his 
religious principles. He had suffered the loss of all things for soul-liberty, and 
now, in framing a new government, he secured that inalienable right at all hazards. 
Excepting "William of Orange, he was the first man amongst legislators to assert liberty 
of conscience in all its plenitude. He separated conscience from all penal statutes 
for religious opinions and practices, and solved forever the problem which has 
given prime vitality to the American Republic. Both the Colony and State of Rhode 
Island sacredly guarded the God-like provisions which Williams committed to the 
trust of its people, and from the day that he founded the colony no man has ever 
been persecuted there for his religious principles and practices. In the beginning 
of the seventeenth century Holland was the only country where the Jews enjoyed 
religious liberty, but as early as 1617 the General Assembly of Rhode Island 
decreed that there, ' All men may walk as their consciences persuade them, every 
one in the name of his God.' Hence, in 165S the first synagogue in America, in- 
deed in the British Empire, was established at ^Newport, R. I., under full religious 
freedom, although one was organized in Xew York in 1551, with restrictions of a 
painful character. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE PROVIDENCE AND NEWPORT CHURCHES. 

ROGER WILLIAMS, having adopted the old Baptist principle of absolute 
soul-liberty aud given it practical effect in the civil provisions which he had 
devised, could not stop there. This deep moral truth carried with it certain 
logical outworkings concerning human duty as well as its rights, and as his doctrine 
could not stand alone in his thought, he was compelled to take another step for- 
ward. Relieved from all outside authority in matters of conscience, to which he 
had formerly submitted, he was now directly responsible to God for the correctness 
of his faith and practice, and by all that he had suffered he was bound to walk in 
an enlightened conscience. This compelled him to inquire what obedience God de- 
manded of him personally, and threw him directly back upon his word as to his 
personal duty in the matter of baptism. While an infant he had been christened, 
but having now put himself under the supreme Headship of Christ, without the 
intervention of human authority, he found himself at a step on pure Baptist ground, 
and determined to be baptized on his own faith. 

Williams with five others had settled Providence in June, 1636, and their 
numbers soon grew, so that in about three years there appear to have been about 
thirty families in the colony. In the main, the Christian portion of them had been 
Congregationalists, but in their trying position they seem to have been left unsettled 
religiously, especially regarding Church organization. Winthrop says that they met 
both on week-days and th,e Sabbath for the worship of God ; but the first sign of a 
Church is found some time previous to March, 1639, when Williams and eleven others 
were baptized, and a Baptist Church was formed under his lead. Hubbard tells us that 
he was baptized ' by one Holliman, then Mr. Williams re-baptized him and some ten 
more.' Ezekiel Holliman had been a member of Williams's Church at Salem, which 
Church, March 12th, 1638, charged him with ' neglect of public worship, and for draw- 
ing many over to his persuasion. For this he ' is referred to the elders, that they may 
endeavor to convince and bring him from his principle and practice.' : Through its 
pastor, Hugh Peters, the Salem Church wrote to the Dorchester Church July 1st, 
1639, informing them that 'the great censure' had been passed upon 'Roger 
Williams and his wife, Thomas Olney and his wife, Stukley Westcot and his wife, 
Mary Holliman, with widow Reeves,' and that ' these wholly refused to hear the 
Church, denying it and all the Churches of the Bay to be the true Churches, and 
(except two) all are re-baptized? 2 



WILLIAMS BAPTIZED. 279 

In the baptism of these twelve we find a case of peculiar necessity, such as that 
in which the validity of ' lay-baptism ' has never been denied. Tertullian, Ambrose, 
Augustine and Jerome, all held that in cases of necessity ' laymen ' should baptize 
and the Synod of Elvira so decreed. Mosheim writes : ' At first, all who were en- 
gaged in propagating Christianity, administered this rite ; nor can it be called in 
question, that whoever persuaded any person to embrace Christianity, could baptize 
his own disciple.' 3 Some, amongst whom we find Winthrop, have thought that 
Williams became a Baptist under the influence of a sister of Mrs. Hutchinson ; others, 
that John Clarke, then of Aquidneck, was very likely the instrument of influencing 
him to this choice. But Clarke makes no reference in his writings to the baptism 
of his intimate friend, as he probably would have done had he led him to this step. 
So far as appears, there was not a Baptist minister in the colony at the time. 
Williams was an ordained minister in the English Episcopal Church and had been 
re-ordained at Salem, May, 1635, after the Congregational order, so that no one 
coiild question his right to immerse on the ground of non-ordination. He has left 
no account of his baptism, and some have questioned whether he was immersed, a 
point that we may now examine. 

Under date of March 16th, 1639, Felt says : 'Williams, as stated by Winthrop, 
was lately immersed ; ' 4 and that he was immersed has never been questioned by any 
historian down from Winthrop to Bancroft, until recently. In 1879 this question 
was raised, but only then on the assumption that immersion was not practiced by the 
English Baptists until 16-11, and so, that in America, Williams must have been 'af- 
fused ' in March, 1639 ! Richard Scott, who was a Baptist with Williams at Provi- 
dence, but who afterward became a Quaker, writing against Williams thirty-eight 
years afterward, says : ' I walked with him in the Baptists' way about three or four 
months, ... in which time he broke from his society, and declared at large the ground 
and reason for it ; that their baptism could not be right because it was not adminis- 
tered by an apostle. After that he set upon a way of seeking, with two or three of 
them that had dissented with him, by way of preaching and praying ; and there he 
continued a year or two till two of the three left him. . . . After his society and he 
in a Church way were parted, he then went to England." 5 Here he gives no hint that 
'the Baptists' way' differed in any respect in 1639 from what it was when he wrote. 
Hooker's letter to Shepard, November 2d, 16-10, shows clearly that immersion was 
practiced at Providence at that time. When speaking of Humphrey inviting 
Chauncey from Plymouth to Providence, on account of his immersionist notions, 
Hooker says: 'That coast is more meet for his opinion and practice? And Cod- 
dington, Governor of Rhode Island, a determined enemy of Williams, put this point 
unmistakably, thus : 'I have known him about fifty years; a mere weather-cock, 
constant only in inconstancy. . . . One time for water baptism, men and women 
must be plunged into the water, and then threw it all down again.' 6 

But Williams's own opinion of Scripture baptism, given in a letter to Winthrop, 



280 HE WAS DIPPED. 

November 10th, 1649. should set this point at rest. Speaking of Clarke, the founder 
of the Baptist Church at Newport, he writes : ' At Seekonk a great many have 
lately concurred with Mr. Clarke and our Providence 'men about the point of a 
new baptism and the manner of dipping, and Mr. Clarke hath been there lately, and 
Mr. Lucar, and hath clipped them. I believe their practice comes nearer the first 
practice of our great founder, Jesus Christ, than other practices of religion do, and 
yet I have not satisfaction neither in the authority by which it is done, nor in the 
manner.' These words were written ten years after he repudiated his Providence 
baptism by Holliman, and after he had cast aside baptism altogether, both as to 
' authority ' and ' manner.' As to the legitimate use of the phrase ' new baptism ' by 
him, its sense in this case would relate to an institution administered afresh to the 
candidates at Seekonk in addition to their infant baptism, and to the recent intro- 
duction of that practice on this continent, as contrary to the entire previous practice 
here, and not to the creation of a new rite, or the revival of an old one ; for even in 
16-19 he thought it nearer the practice of Jesus Christ. There can be no doubt as 
to what these elders, Clarke and Lucar, did in administering baptism at Seekonk, for 
Clarke's Confession of Faith, found in the records of his Church (No. 32), says : ' I 
believe that the true baptism of the Gospel is a visible believer with his own consent 
to be baptized in common water, by dying, or, as it were, drowning, to hold forth 
death, burial and resurrection, by a messenger of Jesus, into the name of the Father, 
Son and Holy Spirit.' 7 Williams says here, that ' our Providence men ' ' concurred ' 
with Clarke and the converts at Seekonk, and gives no intimation that the Providence 
Baptists had ever differed from .his own views concerning dipping as ' nearer the 
first practice of our great founder, Jesus Christ, than other practices of religion do.' 
The hand of God appears to have led Roger Williams to plant the good seed of 
the kingdom in that colony, and then to step aside, lest any flesh should glory in his 
presence. In that day there was a very respectable class of men, both in England 
and the older colonies, nicknamed ' Seekers,' simply because they were earnest 
inquirers after truth ; and, concluding that it was impossible to find it then on earth, 
they looked for its new manifestation from heaven. They sought a visible and apos- 
tolic line of purely spiritual character, something after the order of the late Edward 
Irving, and not finding this, they waited for a renewal of Apostles with special gifts 
of the Spirit to attest their credentials. When Williams withdrew from the Baptists 
he was classed with these. His theory of the apostolate seems to have been the cause 
of his withdrawal, and of his doubt concerning the validity of his baptism. A few 
years later, in his ' Bloody Tenet ' and his ' Hireling Ministry,' he denied that a 
ministry existed which was capable of administering the ordinances, for in the rule 
of Antichrist the true ministry was lost, and he waited for its restoration, much 
after John Smyth's view, in a new order of succession. Of course he looked upon 
his baptism as defective, and withdrew from the Baptists. His was not an unusual 
case at that period. 



THE CEURCE AT PROVIDENCE. 281 

Walter Cradock tells us, in 1648, of ' a man that was a member of a Church, 
and, because he saw infants baptized and himself was not, he broke off from them, 
and said that there was no Church, and all the streams did run for two months together 
on baptism ; there was nothing talked of but that, and concluded the Anabaptists and 
all were Antichristian, and there was no Church nor any thing till we had Apostles 
again. As I told you, that any that hold that principle and follow it closely and 
rationally, they will infallibly come to Apostles, and miracles, and signs from heaven.' 8 

The withdrawal of "Williams from the Baptists did not disrupt brotherly love 
between them to the end of his life, and he did not prize this brotherly fellowship 
lightly. 

In reply, to Fox, 1672, he says : ' After all my search and examinations and 
considerations, I do profess to believe that some come nearer to the first primitive 
Churches and the institutions and appointments of Jesus Christ than others ; as in 
many respects, so in that gallant and heavenly and fundamental principle of the 
true matter of a Christian congelation, flock, or society ; namely, actual believers, 
true disciples and converts, living stones, such as can give some account how the 
grace of God hath appeared unto them.' 

It will be in order here to say a few words concerning the Church which he 
planted at Providence. 

The advanced views of Williams in regard to the need of personal regeneration 
in a Christian and his utter rejection of infant baptism, views radically distinctive 
of Baptists both in his day and ours, and the direct opposite of those held by the 
standing order in the New England colonies of his time, show clearly the grounds 
of his baptism by Holliman. Of his personal regeneration he says : ' From my 
childhood, now above three-score years', the Father of Lights and Mercies touched 
my soul with a love to himself, to the only begotten, the true Lord Jesus, to 
his Holy Scriptures.' 9 Three years after making this statement, he states to George 
Fox that a Gospel Church must be made up of such regenerate men, and calls them 
'actual believers, true disciples and converts, living stones, such as can give some 
account how the grace of God hath appeared unto them and wrought that heavenly 
change in them.' This change he calls ' that gallant and heavenly and funda- 
mental principle of the true matter of a Christian congregation, flock or societ} 7 .' 10 
And as these were the views which he held in 1675, thirty-six years after his own 
baptism, it is only fair to credit him with them at the time of his baptism. His 
tractate, ' Christenings make not Christians,' published in London, 16-45, gives a full 
exposition of his radical views on this subject, in language so full and round as 
to make them worthy of the best teachers of Baptist theology in the present century. 
This rare book, which was supposed to be lost, but which has recently been found 
amongst the enormous accumulations of the British Museum and republished in 
Rider's ' Rhode Island Historical Tracts,' must speak here. On page 5 he says : 

' To be a Christian implies two things, to be a follower of that anointed One in 
all his offices, second to partake of his anointings.' On page 7 he deplores departure 
from the true kingdom of God as shown by the marks of a ' false conversion and a 



282 HIS VIEWS OF CHRISTENING. 

false constitution or framing of national Churches, in false ministries, the ministra- 
tions of baptism, Supper of the Lord,' etc. He charges, on pages 10, 11, that false 
Christians had made amongst the heathen ' monstrous and most inhuman conver- 
sions, yea, ten thousands of the poor natives, sometimes by wiles and subtile devices, 
sometimes by force, compelling them to submit to that which they understood not, 
neither before nor after such their monstrous christening of them. Thirdly, for 
our New England parts, I can speak uprightly and confidently. I know it to have 
been easy fur myself, long ere this, to have brought many thousands of these natives, 
yea, the whole country, to a far greater antichristian conversion than ever was yet 
heard of in America. I have reported something in the chapter of their religion 
(in his Key) how readily I could have brought the whole country to have observed 
one day in seven ; I add to have received a baptism (or washing), though it were in 
rivers (as the first Christians and the Lord Jesus himself did), to have come to a 
stated Church meeting, maintained priests and forms of prayer, and the whole form 
of antichristian worship in life and death.' 

After repeating that he could so have converted the Indians, he asks : 

'Why have I not brought them to such a conversion? I answer: Woe be to 
me, if I call light darkness, or darkness light ; sweet bitter, or bitter sweet ; woe to 
me, if I call that conversion unto God, which is, indeed, subversion of the souls of 
millions in Christendom, from one worship to another, and the profanation of the 
holy name of God, his holy Son and blessed ordinances. ... It is not a suit of crim- 
son satin will make a dead man live ; take off and change his crimson into white, he 
is dead still. Off with that, and shift him into cloth of gold, and from that to cloth 
of diamonds, he is but a dead man still. For it is not a form, nor the change of ono 
form into another, a finer and a finer and yet more fine, that makes a man a convert 
— I mean such a convert as is acceptable to God in Jesus Christ according to the 
visible rule of his last will and testament. I speak not of hypocrites, which may 
but glitter, and be no solid gold, as Simon Magus, Judas, etc. But of a true external 
conversion [probably a misprint for mternal] I say, then, woe be to me ! if intending 
to catch men, as the Lord Jesus said to Peter, I should pretend conversion, and the 
bringing of men, as mystical fish, into a Church estate ; that is, a converted estate, 
and so build them up with ordinances as a converted Christian people, and yet 
afterward still pretend to catch them by an after conversion.' 

On pages 17, 18, he thus more fully defines what he held repentance and con- 
version to be : ' First, it must be by the free proclaiming and preaching of repent- 
ance and forgiveness of sins (Luke xxiv) by such messengers as can prove their lawful 
sending and commission from the Lord Jesus to make disciples out of all nations ; 
and so to baptize or wash them, Elg rb ovofia, into the name or profession of the Holy 
Trinity. Matt, xxviii, 19 ; Rom. x, 14, 15. Secondly, such a conversion, so far as 
man's judgment can reach, which is fallible, as was the judgment of the first 
messengers, as in Simon Magus, etc., as in the turning of the whole man from the 
power of Satan unto God. Acts xxvi. Such a change, as if an old man became 
a new babe (John iv) ; yea, as amounts to God's new creation in the soul. Eph. 
ii, 10.' 

In view of the fact that Williams remained .with the Baptists but three or foui 
months, some have seriously doubted whether he formed a Church there after that 
order at all, and amongst these, at one time, was the thoughtful and accurate 



HIS TROUBLE WITH THE CHURCH. 283 

■Callender; but lie seems at last to have concluded otherwise. Scott's words appear 
to settle this point, for he not only says that he walked with Williams in the Bap- 
tists' way, but that Williams ; broke from his society, and declared at large his 
reasons for doing so ; '• that two or three ' dissented with him ; ' and that he parted 
with ' his society ' ' in a Church way.' What became of ' his society ' after he left 
it is not very clear. Cotton Mather says : ' Whereupon his Church dissolved them- 
selves ;' and Neal, that 'his Church hereupon crumbled to pieces.' 11 It is difficult 
to know how far the so-called ' Records ' of the Providence Church may be relied 
upon, as we shall see, but they say that ' Mr. Holliman was chosen assistant to Mr. 
Williams ; ' and it is probable that upon this authority Professor Knowles says, in 
his ' Life of Williams,' that Holliman ' became a preacher,' and fostered the society. 12 
Scott's account carries the implication throughout that the main body held together 
as Baptists when Williams left them. Great blame has been thrown upon Roger 
Williams for leaving the ' society' in Providence, and his conduct can be accounted 
for in part by his preconceived notions of a succession in the ministry, as is indicated 
in the expression already quoted, from his pen : ' By such messengers as can prove 
their lawful sending and commission.' But this accounts for it only in part. We 
may suppose that the affairs of the colony demanded the greater part of his time 
and energies. And moreover, we are not without indications that he found it about 
as hard to get along with compeers in that ' society ' as they found it to get along 
with him ; for none of them were made of the most supple material in human nature, 
as their after contentions and divisions about psalm-singing, laying on of hands, and 
other things show. Also the following shows that he did not regard some of them 
as any more orthodox in some doctrinal matters than they needed to be. He says, 
in a letter to John Whipple, dated Providence, August 24th, 1669 : ' I am sorry 
that you venture to play with the fire, and W. Wickenden is toasting himself in 
it, and my want of tongs to rake him out without burning my ringers, etc. You 
know who it is that counts you and us as fools for believing the Scriptures ; namely, 
that there shall be any hell at all, or punishment for sin after this life. But I am 
content to be a fool with Jesus Christ, who tells us of an account for every idle 
word in the day of judgment.' This rather indicates that some of the Providence 
brethren were tinctured with ' new theology,' while Roger stood squarely with 
Christ Jesus on the doctrine of future retribution, and had his own trials with the 
rather peculiar people of that old First Church for fully half a century. 

From this time on the early history of the Church becomes a perplexing confu- 
sion, from the absence of records ; if any minutes were kept they cannot be found. 
In fact, during the so-called King Philip's War, in 1676, most if not all the houses 
in Providence were destroyed by the Indians, and the records, if there were any, 
of course, perished in the flames. About a century ago Rev. John Stanford preached 
for a year to the First Baptist Church in Providence, and made an honest attempt 
to collect the most reliable information that he could command, and formulated a 



284 PROVIDENCE CHURCH RECORDS. 

Book of Records. Stanford's original manuscript of twenty pages folio has been 
preserved in the archives of the society, and also copied into the first volume of the 
Church records, which begin only in April, 1775. His history of the Church was 
published by Rippon in the 'Baptist Annual Register' for 1801-2. The doctor 
possessed unusual ability, and was not supposed to misrepresent in the slightest de- 
gree; but it was impossible for him to construct a reliable history without authentic 
material. All that he had was tradition and a few fragments, and he complains thus 
of his scanty supply : 'No attention to this necessary article has been paid;' and he 
further says that he attempted this collection ' under almost every discouraging cir- 
cumstance.' After doing the best that he could, his supposed facts are so fragment- 
ary as to leave long gaps unfilled, with their value so impaired that few careful writers 
feel at liberty to follow them entirely. Then they contain some few contradictions 
which the doctor was not able to explain, and which perplex all calm investigators ; 
for example, they state that Williams was pastor of the Church for four years instead 
of four months ; that it is not known when Thomas Olney was baptized or ordained, 
and that he came to Providence in 1654; whereas, in another place, they state that 
he was in the canoe with Williams when the Indians saluted him with ' What 
cheer ? ' and his name always appears in the list of members baptized by Williams, 
and amongst the thirteen original proprietors of Providence. Professor Knowles 
complains of these errors ; also Dr. Caldwell, a most candid and careful writer, says 
in his history of this Church, that this record 'contains many errors, which have 
been repeated by later writers, and sometimes as if they had the authority of 
original records.' Of the above contradictions he remarks : ' Mr. Stanford, in the 
Records, confounding Mr. Olney with his son, makes the following statement, which 
is an almost unaccountable mixture of errors.' 

Where such serious defects abound in any records, it is clear that little firm 
reliance can be placed upon their testimony, and this without reflection on the com- 
piler, who stated only what he found, and attempted no manufacture of facts to 
complete his story. We are obliged, therefore, to consult side lights and outside 
testimony, and take it for what it is worth, according to the means of information 
enjoyed by contemporaneous and immediately succeeding witnesses. These are not 
numerous in this case, nor are they very satisfactory, because their testimony does 
not always agree, nor had they equal means of knowing whereof they spoke. 
Hence several different theories have been put forth on the subject, in the friendly 
discussions of those who have cherished them, and so far without a solution of the 
difficulties. 

In 1850 Rev. Samuel Adlam, then pastor of the First Church at Newport, 
wrote a pamphlet in which he attempted to show that if Roger Williams established 
a Church, and it did not fall to pieces after he withdrew from it, that his successor 
was Thomas Olney, Sr. ; and that, in 1652-53, the Church divided on the subject 
of laying on of hands. Then that Wickenden went out with the new body, whil* 1 



STATEMENT OF JOHN COMER. 285 

Olney remained with the old body, which he continued to serve as pastor until his 
death, in 1682, after which that Church existed until 1715, when it died; and so 
that the present Church at Providence dates back only to 1652-53. He founds 
this claim on the statement of John Comer, who left a diary in manuscript, 
and, writing about 1726-31, said : ' Mr. William Vaughn finding a number of 
Baptists in the town of Providence, lately joined together in special Church 
covenant, in the faith and practice, under the inspection of Mr. Wiggington [Wick- 
en den], being heretofore members of the Church under Mr. Thomas Olney, of that 
town, he, that is, Mr. William Vaughn, went thither in the month of October, 1652, 
and submitted thereto (the laying on of hands), whereupon he returned to Newport, 
accompanied with Mr. William Wiggington and Mr. Gregory Dexter.' 

For the above reason, Comer believed that the Newport and not the Providence 
Church was the first in what is now Rhode Island, and the first in America. 
Backus, who wrote in 1777, and Staples, in his ' Annals of Providence ' (184:3), both 
accept Comer's statement in relation to Olney as correct, Backus stating that Thomas 
Olney, Sr., ' was next to Mr. Williams in the pastoral office, and continued so to his 
death, over that part of the Church who were called Five Principle Baptists, in dis- 
tinction from those who parted from their brethren about the year 1653, under the 
leading of elder Wickenden, holding to the laying on of hands upon every Church 
member.' This he repeats, and adds that when Williams ' put a stop to his further 
travel with ' the First Church in Providence, ' Thomas Olney was their next minister,' 
after which he laments that darkness fell ' over their affairs.' 13 Comer's testimony 
carried great weight with these authors, and justly ; for he was a most painstaking 
man, possessing a clear and strong mind under high culture, ranking with the first men 
of his day. He was born in Boston, was nephew to Rev. Elisha Callender, pastor of 
the First Baptist Church there, and was baptized by him in 1725. His parents had 
been Presbyterians, but on reading Stennett's reply to Russen, became Baptists. 
They educated their son at Vale, and he was chosen colleague to Peckham at New- 
port. Morgan Edwards says of him: 'He was curious in making minutes of very 
remarkable events, which swelled at last into two volumes. . . '. To this manuscript 
am I beholden for many chronologies and facts in this my third volume. He had con- 
ceived a design of writing a history of the American Baptists, but death broke his 
purpose at the age of thirty years, and left that for others to execute.' 14 This man- 
uscript is now in possession of the Rhode Island Historical Society at Providence, 
and in writing it he gathered many facts from Samuel Hubbard and Edward Smith, 
both contemporary with the events which they related to him. 

Those who do not accept the positions taken by Comer in this matter, and they 
constitute the great majority, claim that Rev. Chad Brown was the immediate pas- 
toral successor of Williams ; that when the division took place, in 1652-53, it was 
Olney who went out from the old Church with a new interest, and not Wickenden ; 
that the Olney interest ceased to exist in 1715, and so, that the present First Church 



286 LAYING ON OF HANDS. 

at Providence is the veritable Church which Williams formed in 1639. All admit 
that there was a division in the Church in 1652-53, but it seems impossible on 
present evidence to determine fully which was the seceding party. John Callender, 
another nephew of Elisha Callender, born 1706, graduated at Harvard, and settled 
as successor to Peckham at Newport, a man of wonderful attainments and accuracy, 
preached a great Historical Sermon in 1738 on ' The History of Rhode Island ' 
covering its first century, which document has become standard authority ; he 
states the case with the widest difference from Comer. He says : 

'About the year 1653 there was a division in the Baptist Church at Providence 
about the rite of laying on of hands, which some pleaded for as essentially necessary 
to Church communion, and the others would leave indifferent. Hereupon they 
walked in two Churches, one under Mr. C. Brown, Wickenden, etc., the other 
under Mr. Thomas Olney, but laying on of hands at length generally prevailed.' 
On page 61, in the first edition of his sermon, he has this foot-note : ' This last con- 
tinued till about twenty years since, when, becoming destitute of an elder, the mem- 
bers united with other Churches.' . 

Stephen Hopkins, in his ' History of Providence,' published in 1765, says, with 
both Comer and Callender before him : 

' The first Church formed at Providence by Mr. Williams and others seems to 
have been on the model of the Congregational Churches in the other New England 
colonies. But it did not continue long in this form ; for most of its members very 
soon embraced the principles and practices of the Baptists, and some time earlier 
than 1639 gathered and formed a Church at Providence of that society. . . . This 
first Church of Baptists at Providence hath from the beginning kept itself in repute, 
and maintained its discipline, so as to avoid scandal, or schism, to this day; hath 
always been, and still is, a numerous congregation, and in which I have with pleas- 
ure observed very lately sundry descendants from each of the above-mentioned 
founders, except Holliman.' 15 

When Williams published his ' Bloody Tenet ' in 1643-44:, he held the doctrine 
of laying on of hands, for he says therein : 

' Concerning baptism and laying on of hands, God's people will be found to be 
ignorant for many hundred years, and I cannot yet see it proved that light is risen, 
I mean the light of the first institution, in practice.' 

He repeats the same sentiment in the ' Bloody Tenet, yet More Bloody,' 1652, 
and in his ' Hireling Ministry,' 1652. 16 This throws a ray of light upon the statement 
of Morgan Edwards, made in 1770 : 

' At first laying on of hands was held in a lax manner, so that they who had no 
faith in the rite were received without it, and such (saith Joseph Jenks) was the 
opinion of the Baptists in the first constitution of their Churches throughout this 
colony.' Again he says : ' Some divisions have taken place in this Church. The 
first was about the year 1654, on account of laying on of hands. Some were for 
banishing it entirely, among which Rev. Thomas Olney was the chief, who, with a 
few more withdrew and formed themselves into a distinct Church, distinguished by 
the name of Five Point Baptists, and the first of the name in the province ; it con- 
tinued in being to 1715, when Mr. Olney resigned the care of it, and soon after it 
ceased to exist.' 



THOMAS OLNEY, JR. 287 

Mr. Olney, to Whom Edwards refers as having resigned in 1715, could not have 
been the Rev. Thomas Olney who was one of the constituent members of the 
Church, and an assistant to Rev. Chad Brown. He died in 1682. His son, Thomas 
Olney, Jr., who is said also to have been an elder, died in 1722, at the advanced age 
of ninety-one. He was the town clerk until his death. 

It seems clear from the statements of the most reliable historians that the first 
warm contention on the subject at Providence was between Wickenden and Olney, 
as to whether the point of being ' under hands ' should be made a test of fellowship ; 
that Olney went out, that Wickenden and Brown remained with the old Church, and 
that in that body, according to Callender, laying on of hands prevailed, and held 
its own till the days of Manning, when it ceased to be a term of membership, and 
gradually died out. The absence of records and contradictory statements from vari- 
ous sources, as to a succession of pastors until the coming of Dr. Manning, render it 
next to impossible to follow a regular thread here, and the tangle is made worse by the 
statements of all, that in its early history the Church had three or four elders at once. 
Dr. BaiTows says, of the first Newport Church, that it had elders ' besides a pastor/ 
and mentions three by name ; and Dr. Caldwell says, that the Providence Church had 
* two or three elders ' at the same time. At the time of the division, 1652-53, there 
were four elders in this Church — Brown, Wickenden, Olney and Dexter. From 
Williams onward they were a glorious body of men. Some of them were Five and 
some Six Principle men ; but there was not one Seventh Principle Baptist amongst 
them, who held to the ' five barley loaves and two small fishes.' For two genera- 
tions they served the Church without salaries, a practice which must have ruined it 
without special grace. Their course in this direction induced Morgan Edwards to 
say : ' The ministry of this Church has been a very expensive one to the ministers, 
and a very cheap one to the Church.' 

There is abundant cause for gratitude that Dr. Manning found his way to 
Providence as pastor in 1771. From that day it began to write a new history, but 
not without a struggle. He came first as a visitor and was invited to preach. But, 

' Being Communion-day, Mr. Winsor invited Mr. Manning to partake with 
them, which the president cordially accepted. After this several members were 
dissatisfied with Mr. Manning's partaking of the Lord's Supper with them ; but at 
a Church meeting, appointed for the purpose, Mr. Manning was admitted to com- 
munion by vote of the Church. Notwithstanding this, some of the members 
remained dissatisfied at the privilege of transient communion being allowed Mr. 
Manning ; whereupon another meeting was called previous to the next communion 
day, in order to reconcile the difficulty. At said meeting Mr. Manning was con- 
firmed in his privilege by a much larger majority. At the next Church meeting 
Mr. Winsor appeared with an unusual number of members from the country, and 
moved tp have Mr. Manning displaced, but to no piirpose. The ostensible reason 
of Mr. Winsor and of those with him for objecting against President Manning was, 
that he did not make imposition of hands a bar to communion, though he himself 
had received it, and administered it to those who desired it. Mr. Winsor and the 
Church knew Mr. Manning's sentiments and practice for more than six years at 
21 



288 Dlt MANNING AS PASTOR. 

Warren, those, therefore, who were well-informed attributed the opposition to the 
president's holding to singing in public worship, which was highly disgustful to Mr. 
Winsor. The difficulty increasing, it was resolved to refer the business to the next 
Association at Swansea. But when the case was presented, the Association, after a 
full hearing on both sides, agreed that they had no right to determine, and that the 
Church must act for themselves. The next Church meeting, which was in October, 
was uncommonly full. All matters relative to the president were fully debated, 
and by a much larger majority were determined in his favor. It was then agreed 
all should sit down at the Lord's Table the next Sabbath, which was accordingly 
done. But at the subsequent communion season, Mr. Winsor declined administer- 
ing the ordinance, assigning for a reason, that a number of the brethren were dis- 
satisfied. April 18, 1771, being Church meeting, Mr. Winsor appeared and pro- 
duced a paper, signed by a number of members living out of town, dated Jonston, 
February 27, 1771.' These parties withdrew on the issue, and formed a Six Prin- 
ciple Church.' 17 

On June 10th, 1771, the first Church sent to Swansea, inviting elders Job and 
Russel Mason to come and break bread to them after Samuel Winsor had left them 
to form a new Church. They replied, June 28th: 'Whereas, you have sent a 
request for one of us to break bread among you, we laid your request before our 
Church meeting ; and there being but few present, and we not being able to know 
what the event of such a proceeding might be at this time, think it not expedient 
for us to come and break bread with you.' 18 Before Manning accepted the pas- 
torate permanently, the Church appointed him to break bread, and he acted as- 
pastor pro tern. After the Church got through with all its quiddities and contentions,, 
and came to labor earnestly for the salvation of men, the Holy Spirit was graciously 
outpoured upon it, and its prosperity became marked. In 1774 a young man named 
Biggilo was accidentally killed in Providence, and his death stirred the whole 
city. Tamer Clemons and Yenus Arnold, two colored women, gave themselves to 
Christ, were converted and baptized ; and the record says, ' The sacred flame of 
the Gospel began to spread. In fifteen months one hundred and four confessed 
the power of the Spirit of Christ, in the conversion of their souls, and entered the 
gates of Zion with joy.' They had no meeting-house for nearly sixty years, hut 
met in groves or private houses, till noble elder Tillinghast built one, at his own 
expense, in 1700. Under the ministry of Dr. Manning, this, however ceased to 
meet their necessities, and in 1774 the present beautiful edifice was erected at a cost 
of £7,000, and dedicated to God on May 28th, 1775. Our fathers delighted greatly 
in its tall steeple, 196 feet in height, and in their new bell, which weighed 2,515 
pounds, bearing this motto : 

" For freedom of conscience, the town was first planted ; 

Persuasion, not force, was used by the people ; 
This church is the eldest, and has not recanted, 

Enjoying and granting bell, temple, and steeple." 

Mind you, reader, this was one year before the clang of that grand old sister bell 
at Philadelphia which rang in our independence. But, alas for the vanity of noisy 



DR. JOHN CLARKE. 289 

metal, the Baptist bell split its sides in 1787, and that at Independence Hall 
followed its example, since which time the Providence people have kept their best 
bell in the pulpit, without a crack, from Manning to T. Edwin Brown, not the son of 
Chad, but his last worthy successor. Few bodies on earth have been honored with 
such a line of pastors for two and a half centuries, and few Churches have been so 
faithful to the great, first principles of the Gospel, without wavering for an hour. 
These she has maintained, too, without any written creed or human declaration of 
faith, standing firmly on the text and spirit of the Bible, as her only rule of faith 
and practice ; notwithstanding that for a time her organization was followed by a 
set of crude notions and practices which do not characterize the Baptists of to-day, 
and which do not entitle her founders to canonization by any means. Taking 
Roger's Romish quiddity about apostolic succession and his thesis about some other 
things into account, they were a fair match for each other. 

The First Church at Newport and its founder now invite our attention. John 
Clarke, M.D., has few peers in any respect amongst the founders of New England, 
and, except in point of time, is more properly the father of the Baptists there than 
Roger Williams, who must ever remain its great apostle of religious liberty. Clarke 
was born in Suffolk, England, in 1609 ; was liberally educated and practiced as a 
physician in London for a time ; but seems to have been equally versed in law and 
theology, with medicine. His religious and political principles led him to cast in 
his lot with the New "World and he arrived in Boston in November, 1637. There 
is no evidence that he was a Baptist at this time, but rather he seems to have been 
a Puritan, much like Roger Williams when he landed there ; and as Clarke expected 
to practice medicine in Boston, he would scarcely have been tolerated there at all 
as a Baptist. At that moment the Congregational Churches of Boston and vicinity 
were in a warm controversy with Mrs. Hutchinson and her brother-in-law, Mr. 
Wheelwright, touching their doctrines. After they were banished, November 20th, 
1637, excitement ran high, and a number of persons who had more or less sympathy 
with them, either on account of their views or their banishment, determined to 
retire from the colony and found one of their own, where they could have peace. 
Clarke went with this band, it is supposed to New Hampshire, where they spent the 
winter of 1637-38 at or near Dover. Finding the climate too severe, in the spring 
they determined to make either for Long Island or Delaware. When they reached 
Cape Cod, they left their vessel to go overland and make for Providence, where 
Roger Williams welcomed them warmly, from which time the names of Clarke and 
Williams become inseparable in the political and religious history of our country. 

Williams suggested that they remain in that region, and after deliberate consid- 
eration, Clarke purchased of the Indians, through the agency of Williams, Aquid- 
neck, otherwise and now called the island of Rhode Island, whose chief city is New- 
port. Their first settlement was at the north end of the island, at what is now 
Portsmouth. Here, March 7th, 1638, their first step was to form a civil govern- 



290 PORTSMOUTH AND ITS CHURCHES. 

ment, declaring themselves a ' body-politic,' submitting tbemselves to Christ and 
his holy ' truth, to be guided and judged thereby,' much after the form of the 
Pilgrims at Plymouth. They then chose Coddington as judge or magistrate, ap- 
pointed civil officers, and voted a whipping-post, a jail and a pair of stocks. 
At one time, it was supposed that this was a religious compact, because they ap- 
pointed ' three elders,' January 2d, 1639. These, however, were civil officers, or 
associate judges in the Hebrew sense. They were to assist Coddington ' in the 
execution of justice and judgment, for the regulating and ordering of all offenses 
and offenders,' and they were to report to the freemen quarterly. They also 
determined that in laying out the town, two civil commissioners should locate the 
meeting-house for Portsmouth. These settlers numbered eighteen, most of them 
being Congregationalists and members of Cotton's Church in Boston, but some of 
them were under its censure and that of the Court of Massachusetts for imbibing 
certain peculiar views of Christian doctrine. Whether Anne Hutchinson was with 
them at the moment does not appear, but her husband was. So far as appears 
none of them were Baptists, but sympathized with her in theological sentiments, as 
John Cotton and Sir Henry Vane did at one time, and now determined to enjoy 
the freedom of their consciences. It is not clear whether Clarke was at this time 
a Congregationalist, but they formed a Church, to which he was the preacher, 
whether or not he was the pastor. Winthrop's Journal implies that there were no 
Baptists amongst them. Indeed, why should the State Church at Boston send a 
deputation to a Baptist Church at Portsmouth? He says that they ' gathered a Church 
in a very disorderly way ; for they took some excommunicated persons, and others 
who were members of the Church in Boston and were not dismissed.' . . . That 
'many of Boston and others, who were of Mrs. Hutchinson's judgment and partly 
removed to the isle of Aquiday ; and others who were of the rigid separation, and 
savored of anabaptism, removed to Providence.' Had he known of a Baptist at 
Portsmouth, he would have been likely to say so, and would not have contented 
himself with mentioning that this Church was gathered in a disorderly way. 

In February, 1640, the Boston Church sent three of its members ' to understand 
their judgments in divers points of religion formerly maintained by all or divers of 
them.' This committee of discipline reported to that Church, March 16th, 1640, that 
the new Church at Portsmouth was irregular in that they followed the unwarranta- 
ble practice of taking the Lord's Supper with excommunicated persons ; but the 
deputation gives no hint that any of them were Baptists. The Portsmouth Church 
refused to hear these messengers, demanding : ' What power one Church hath over 
another ? ' When they reported to Cottons Church : ' The elders and most of the 
Churches would have cast them out, as refusing to hear the Church, but all not being 
agreed it was deferred.' 19 In 1638 Newport was settled, at the south end of the 
island, where a Church was formed in 1641, of which Clarke was pastor, probably 
another Congregational Church, for we have no sign that even then he held Bap- 



FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH AT NEWPORT. 29 1 

tist views of the ordinances. Lechford, who visited the Rhode Island colonies, and 
speaks freely of them (1637--41) says: 'At Providence, which is twenty miles from 
the said island (R. I.), lives Master Williams, and his company, of divers opinions ; 
most are Anabaptists.' But of Newport, which he also visited, he says : ' At the 
island called Acquedney are about two hundred families. There was a Church where 
one Master Clarke was elder. The place where the Church was is called Newport. 
But that Church, I hear, is now dissolved.' 

The next most reliable account of Clarke is from John Callender, the sixth 
successor to Clarke, as pastor of the First Baptist Church at Newport, who preached 
the Century Sermon at Newport, March 24th, 1738. In his discourse he uses this 
language : ' It is said that in 1644 Mr. John Clarke and some others formed a Church 
on the scheme and principles of the Baptists. It is certain that in 1648 there were 
fifteen members in full communion.' In 1730 Comer, an earlier successor of Clarke, 
says that this body maintained ' the doctrine of efficacious grace, and professed the 
baptizing of only visible believers upon personal profession by a total immersion in 
water, though the first certain record of this Church is October 12th, 1648.' An 
interesting item may be mentioned here, namely : That Samuel Hubbard and his wife, 
of Fairfield, held to the baptism of believers, and she being arraigned twice for this 
faith, they removed to Newport and united with Clarke's Church November 3d, 1648. 

These things taken together lead to the highly probable conclusion, that Clarke 
became a Baptist somewhere between 1640 and 1644, but we have no record of the 
time of his baptism, or that of his Church. A long train of circumstances indicate 
that his steps had led in the same path with those of Williams in the main ; through 
Puritanism, love of religious liberty, disgust at the intolerance of Massachusetts, 
and so into full Baptist positions. Williams was not a Baptist when he first met 
Clarke, early in 1638, nor was he immersed till March, 1639, a year afterward. 
With the brotherly affection which subsisted between them, the intervention of 
Williams in securing the island of Rhode Island to Clarke, and their common views 
on soul-liberty, is it reasonable to suppose that Williams would have sought baptism 
.at the hands of an immersed layman, if Clarke, his next neighbor, was then a Bap- 
tist ? True, Williams had ceased to be a Baptist when the Baptist Church of which 
Clarke became pastor was formed, so that he could not have baptized Clarke. But 
other elders had taken the Church that Williams had left, and Clarke could have 
received baptism of one of them at Providence, as easily as William Vaughn, of the 
First Baptist Church at Newport, could go to Providence and receive imposition of 
hands from Wickenden in 1652. Be this as it may, however, there is nothing to 
show that Clarke was a Baptist in England, but much to indicate that his love for 
liberty of conscience led him to embrace Baptist principles and practices in Rhode 
Island. Morgan Edwards writes of the Newport Church : 

' It is said to have been a daughter of Providence Church, which was constituted 
about six years before. And it is not at all unlikely that they might be enlight- 



292 CLARKE'S TREATY FROM CHARLES II. 

ened, in the affair of believer's baptism, by Roger Williams and his company, for 
whom they had the greatest kindness. . . . Clarke, its first minister, 1644, remained 
pastor till 1676, when he died. . . . Tradition says that he was a preacher before he 
left Boston, but that he became a Baptist after his settlement in Rhode Island, by 
means of Roger Williams.' 20 

His services in the cause of God and liberty were a marvel. In 1651 the 
colony sent him and Williams to obtain a new charter, which would set aside Cod- 
dington's. Williams returned in 1654, leaving Clarke alone to manage the affair, 
which he did during the Protectorate, and in 1663 he secured from Charles II. that 
remarkable document which was held as fundamental law in Rhode Island till 1842. 
It was an immense triumph of diplomacy to obtain a charter from Charles II., 
which declared that 'no person within the said colony, at any time hereafter, 
shall be anywise molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question for any dif- 
ferences of opinion or matters of religion.' No wonder that he was hailed with 
delight on his return to Rhode Island in 1664, after an absence of twelve long years 
on this high mission. 

He served the public in the General Assembly as Deputy Governor, and in 
other capacities, requiring strength of judgment and versatility of talents. His ' 111 
News from New England,' 'Narrative of New England Persecutions,' with several 
other works, bear the marks of a powerful pen. Callender said of him : ' No char- 
acter in New England is of purer fame than John Clarke.' The Historian of Rhode 
Island says that ' to him Rhode Island was chiefly indebted for the extension of her 
territory on each side of the bay, as well as for her royal charter.' And Roger 
Williams bears this testimony : ' The grand motive which turned the scale of his 
life was the truth of God — a just liberty to all men's spirits in spiritual matters, 
together with the peace and prosperity of the whole colony.' As a consistent Bap- 
tist, he displayed a healthy comprehension of all our principles and gave a beautiful 
unity to our infant cause in the colonies. And it is equally beautiful to see how he 
accepted from Williams all that related to liberty of conscience, although Williams 
did not agree with him in regard to Church life. Williams, at Providence, made the 
distinction between Church and State, radical and complete from the first. Clarke 
at first took the Bible as the code of the civil State, so that in Providence Church 
and State were distinct, but in Aquidneck they were confounded, and only after 
severe experience did that colony come to adopt the Providence doctrine. When 
this was done, Baptist Churches sprang up in different directions, under the mission- 
ary influences of the Newport Church, and people came from many places to unite 
in its fellowship. 

These two Baptists shaped the early history of the present State of Rhode 
Island, and her religious policy has since shaped that of all the States. After 
the Providence Plantations and the people of Narraganset Bay became united under 
one charter, an old writer said of them : ' They are much like their neighbors, only 



HONORABLE HISTORY OF NEWPORT CHURCH. 293 

they have one vice less and one virtue more than they ; for they never persecuted 
any ; but have ever maintained a perfect liberty of conscience.' After quoting these 
words, Edwards remarks : 

'In 1656 the Colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New 
Haven pressed them hard to give up the point, and join the confederates to crush 
the Quakers, and prevent any more from coming to .New England. This they 
refused, saying : " We shall strictly adhere to the foundation principle on which 
this colony was first settled, to wit : That every man who submits peaceably to the 
civil authority, may peaceably worship God according to the dictates of his own con- 
science without molestation." This answer made the said colonies hate them the 
more, and meditate their ruin by slanderous words and violent actions. They had 
to resist Old England as well as New England. Sir Henry Vane admonished them 
in a letter. Williams says : " I spent almost five years' time with the State of 
England to keep off the rage of the English against us." Letter-writers calumniated 
them as the scum and runaways of other countries which, in time, would bring a 
, heavy burden on the land — as sunk into barbarity, that they could speak neither 
good English nor good sense, as libertines, antinomians, and every thing except what 
is good, as despisers of God's worship, and without order or government. In their 
address to the Lord Protector, 1659, they say : " We bear with the several judgments 
and consciences of each other in all the towns of our colony, the which our neighbor 
colonies do not ; which is the only cause of their great offense against us." ' 21 

Mr. Clarke passed through several severe controversies. One, on the ' inner- 
light ' question, with those who claimed to be led entirely thereby. Many of them 
were called ' Seekers,' and some became ' Friends.' Against this doctrine Clarke 
contended manfully for the Baptist claim of the sufficiency of the Bible as the rule 
of faith and practice, and carried the public sentiment with him. In 1652, while he 
was in England, the question of ' laying on of hands ' as a test of membership arose. 
A number withdrew from his Church in 1656, on this issue, and formed a ' Six 
Principle' Baptist Church in Newport; then, in 1671, another body went out and 
formed a 'Seventh Day' Church, on the persuasion that the seventh day is the 
divinely appointed Sabbath. The first successor of Clarke as pastor Avas Obadiah 
Holmes, 1676-82; the second Richard Dingley, 1689-94; then William Peck- 
kam, 1711-32; John Comer, 1726-29, a colleague to Peckkam. John Cal- 
lender became pastor in 1731, died in 1718, and from him the pastoral suc- 
cession has gone on in a line of worthies which would honor the history of 
any Church, while many of its deacons have been known as the first men in the 
commonwealth. The Church has always been Calvinistic, and has practiced 
singing as a part of public worship, excepting for a time, in the early part of the 
eighteenth century. In 1726 it voted to take ' a weekly contribution for the sup- 
port of the ministry.' It has been a living, working band of Christians from its 
organization, and stands on the old platform where it has stood for nearly two and 
a half centuries as prominent and healthful as a city on a hill. 



CHAPTER III. 

CHAUNCEY.-KNOLLYS.-MILES AND THE SWANSEA CHURCH. 

SEVERAL hints are found in the early colonial writings, that an individual here 
and there amongst the colonists inclined to Baptist views in relation to infant 
baptism and immersion before the immersion of Williams. Governor Winslow 
wrote of the Baptists, in 1646 : ' We have some living amongst us, nay, some of our 
Churches, of that judgment;' and Mather states that 'many of the first settlers of 
Massachusetts were Baptists, and they were as holy and watchful and faithful and 
heavenly a people as any, perhaps, in the world.' x We have seen that when Will- 
iams was banished he was not a Baptist, nor does it appear that there was then one 
immersed believer in America. There is no evidence that he expressed any differ- 
ence with his Pedobaptist brethren as to the proper subjects and method of baptism 
before he found himself in the wilderness. Yet we have seen that while he was 
teacher at Plymouth, Elder Brewster read his Baptist tendencies in his preaching, 
and predicted that he would run into ' Anabaptistry.' It is, therefore, a singular 
fact that Pev. Charles Chauncey, who had been an Episcopal clergyman in England, 
and who arrived in Boston in 1638, should have brought the doctrine of immersion 
with him, and made directly for that same Plymouth, where somehow there was an 
' Anabaptist ' taint in the air, to the scant edification of Brewster. Felt writes that 
Chauncey arrived at Plymouth ' a few days before the great earthquake on the 
1st of June,' 1638. At that time Mr. Reyner was teacher to the Church at 
Plymouth, and Morton's manuscript reports this : 

' After Mr. Reyner had been in phice a considerable time it was desired that 
Mr. Charles Chauncey should be invited, who, being a very godly and learned man, 
they intended upon trial to choose him pastor of the Church here for the more 
comfortable performance of the ministry with Mr. John Reyner, the teacher of the 
same ; but there fell out some difference about baptizing, he holding it ought only 
to be by dipping and putting the whole body under water, and that sprinkling was 
unlawful. The Church yielded that immersion or dipping was lawful, but in this 
cold country not so convenient. But they could not and durst not yield to him in 
this — that sprinkling, which all the Churches of Christ, for the most part, at this 
day practice, was unlawful and a human invention, as the same was pressed ; but 
they were willing to yield to him as far as they could and to the utmost, and were 
contented to suffer him to practice as he was persuaded, and when he came to min- 
ister that ordinance he might do it to any that did desire it in that way ; provided, 
he could peaceably suffer Mr. Reyner and such as desired it to have theirs otherwise 
baptized by him, by sprinkling or pouring on of water upon them, so as there might 
be no disturbance in the Church thereabouts. But he said he could not yield there- 
unto, upon which the Church procured some other ministers to dispute the point with 



CONTROVERSY AT SCITUATE. 29S 

him publicly, as Mr. Ralph Patrick, of Duxburrow, who did it sundry times, ably 
and sufficiently, as also some other ministers within this government ; but he was not 
satisfied ; so the Church sent to many other Churches to crave their help and advice 
in this matter, and, with his will and consent, sent them his arguments written under 
his own hand. They sent them to the Church of Boston, in the Bay of Massachu- 
setts, to be communicated with other Churches there ; also they sent the same to the 
Churches of Connecticut and New Haven, with sundry others, and received verv 
able and sufficient answers, as they conceived, from them and their learned ministers, 
who all concluded against him. But himself was not satisfied therewith. Their 
answers were too large here to relate. They conceived the Church had done what 
was meet in the thing.' 

While this Baptist principle was planting itself, by the hands of one who was 
not a Baptist, in the very Mayflower Church — and possibly Chauncey practiced 
immersion from the very rock on which the Pilgrims landed — the same leaven was 
working its way into the heart of the Plymouth colonj^, at Scituate. In Chap. II, 
of the British Baptists, we have seen that Spilsbury's Church, London, came out of 
the Church of which Lathrop, the Separatist, was pastor, in 1633. In 1634 Lathrop 
himself left London, with about thirty of his members, and settled at Scituate, Mass. 
Dean, the Scituate historian, agreeing entirely with Wilson about the troubles of 
that Church in regard to baptism, says : 

' Controversy respecting the mode of baptism had been agitated in Mr. Lathrop's 
Church before he left England, and a part had separated from him, and established 
the first Baptist (Calvinistic) Church in England in 1633. Those that came seem not 
all to have been settled on this point, and they found others in Scituate ready to s_ym- 
pathize with them.' 

Lathrop remained in Scituate as pastor until 1639, when he and a majority of 
his Church removed to Barnstable, and Chauncey became pastor at Scituate. Dean 
further says that a majority of those left at Scituate believed in immersion, but 
' nearly half the Church were resolute in not submitting to that mode.' One party 
held to 'infant sprinkling; another to adult immersion exclusively ; and a third, of 
which was Mr. Chauncey, to immersion of infants as well as of adults.' Winthrop 
shows that down to June, 1610, Chauncey was still at Plymouth, though not as 
pastor, and considerable excitement arose there about his views on baptism. On 
November 2d, 1640, Hooker, Williams's opponent, wrote to Shepherd, his son-in- 
law, thus : 

' I have of late had intelligence from Plymouth. Mr. Chauncey and the Church 
are to part, he to provide for himself, and they for themselves. At the day of fast, 
when a full conclusion of the business should have been made, he openly professed 
he did as verily believe the truth of his opinion as that there was a God in heaven, 
and that he was as settled in it as that the earth was upon the center. If ever such 
confidence find success I miss my mark. Mr. Humphrey, I hear, invites him to 
Providence, and that coast is most meet for his opinions and practice.' 2 

He seems to have been greatly beloved at Plymouth, for Winthrop writes that 
the Church there ' were loath to part with him ; ' and Bradford that he ' removed to 



296 



HANSERD KNOLL 78. 



Scituate, against the earnest wishes of the Plymouth Church to retain him.' He 
continued his ministry at Scituate till 1654, and, the minority of his Church there 
having formed a new Church, February 2d, 1642, those that were left seem to have 
been a unit on the subject of immersion. 3 Some of the records in 'this case are 
interestingly quaint, such as this : ' Cotton answers Chauncey's arguments,' and the 
Church at Plymouth dissents from Chauncey's views, one of the reasons being 'that 
immersion would endanger the lives of infants in winter, and to keep all baptisms 
till summer hath no warrant in God's word.' 4 It does not appear, however, that he 
or his congregation became Baptists, for they retained infant baptism. 

Felt says of him, July 7th, 1642 : ' Chauncey at Scituate still adheres to his 
practice of immersion. He had baptized two of his own children in this way. A 

woman of his congregation who had a 
child of three years old, and wished it 
to receive such an ordinance, was fearful 
that it might be too much frightened 
by being dipped, as some had been. 
She desired a letter from him, recom- 
mending her to the Boston Church, 
so that she might have the child 
sprinkled. He complied, and the rite 
was accordingly administered.' 5 No- 
vember 27th, 1654, he became Presi- 
dent of Harvard College. 




HANSERD KNOLLYS. 



Hanseed Knollys had avowed 
himself a Non-conformist in England, 
and had been made a prisoner at Boston, 
in Lincolnshire, but his keeper allowed 
him to escape, and with his wife he 
arrived at Boston, Mass., July, 1638. 
There he was looked upon with sus- 
picion, and reported to the authorities 
as an Antinomian. Two men in Pis- 
cataqua (Dover, N. H.) came and invit- 
ed him there to preach, and in August 
he went. He remained there and formed a Church, to which he preached till 
September, 1641, when he removed, with certain of his congregation, to Long 
Island, 1ST. Y., where Forrett, agent of the Duke of York, protested against his 
remaining ; and he arrived in London, December 24th, 1641. "While in Dover he 
had trouble into which baptism entered as an element, although Knollys was not a 
Baptist at that time. Lechford, an Episcopalian, who visited Dover in 1641, speaks 
of him as then engaged in a controversy about baptism and Church membership. 
The baptismal point appears to have concerned infant baptism, and on this wise. 
Another Church sprang up in Dover, whether de novo or as a split from Knollys's. 



KNOLL YS IN LONDON. 297 

does not appear, but a majority of the people went to the other Church, under the 
lead of a Mr. Larkham, an English Puritan and a graduate of Cambridge, who 
could not agree with the Congregationalists here. At Dover Larkham ' received 
all into his Church, even immoral persons, who promised amendment. He bap- 
tized any children offered, and introduced the Episcopal service at funerals.' 

Knollys and his Church excommunicated Larkham and his adherents, and a 
tumult arose in the community that brought no great honor to either side. One of 
the things that drove Knollys out of the English Church, says Wilson, was his 
scruple against ' the cross in baptism, etc., and he objected to the admission of 
notoriously wicked persons to the Lord's Supper.' His refusal to take immoral per- 
sons into the Church, and to baptize children, 'any offered,' as Larkham did, implies 
that he believed in personal regeneration as a qualification for membership, but not 
necessarily that he rejected infant baptism entirely, as he might have thought, with 
John Robinson, that the children of believers only should be christened. Indeed, it 
is quite probable that he did not then reject infant baptism altogether, for on March 
23d, 1640, we find him bearing letters from the Dover to the Boston Church, asking 
advice about the scruples of the former Church as to whether they should have any 
fellowship with excommunicated persons, ' except in the sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper % ' In their answer the Boston Church calls them ' godly brethren, who came 
from the Church of Dover,' and tells them that the excommunicated might be 
present at preaching or prayers, and other ordinances of the Church, but not at the 
Supper. To this Knollys replied : ' It is desired by our Church that the elders of 
this Church would certify their judgments by letter.' All of which is inconsistent 
with the idea that either he or his Church were Baptists at that time, while seeking 
the advice of a Congregational Church. Nor, had they been Baptists, should we have 
found Knollys first writing from Dover to friends in London, complaining that the 
government of the Bay was 'worse than a high commission,' and then sending, July, 
1639, a retraction to Winthrop, and afterward, February 20th, 1610, making a 
public confession, in a lecture delivered before the elders and magistrates of New 
Hampshire, that he had slandered the Bay government. In fact, this body would not 
have heard a lecture from a Baptist. 6 All the power of England could not have 
compelled him to humble himself thus ten years later. Baptist principles had 
clearly begun to work their way into his mind in Dover, and on his return to 
London the work was completed. For a time he kept school in his own house on 
Great Tower-Hill ; then he was chosen master of a free school in St. Mary Axe, 
where in one year he had one hundred and fif ty-six scholars ; after which he went 
into the Parliament army to preach to the soldiers. When Episcopacy was laid 
aside he preached again in the parish churches, till the Presbyterians began to per- 
secute him. This brought oiit his Baptist sentiments, which he avowed with great 
boldness when preaching one day in Bow Church, Cheapside. There his attack on 
infant baptism was so strong that, on a warrant, he was thrown into prison. As in 



298 JOHN MILES. 

the case of Clarke and Holmes, we have no account of his baptism, but we find him 
immersing Henry Jesse in June, 1645, and in the same year he formed a Baptist 
Church at Great St. Helen's, London, where he preached to a thousand people, and 
became one of the noblest heroes that ever proclaimed the Baptist faith ; probably 
New England having more to do in making him what he was as a Baptist than Old 
England. 7 This agrees with Evans, who, speaking of Knollys becoming a Baptist, 
says of him : ' Knollys, some years before, had fled from the fierce anger of the 
hierarchy to the wilds of the New World, but had now returned.' 

By some means a little Baptist leaven had found its way to Weymouth, Mass., 
in 1639. Robert Lenthal was to be settled there as pastor, when it was discovered 
that he held that ' all the requisite for Church membership should be baptism,' 
whatever this might mean. Pie, therefore, with several others, attempted to collect 
a Church, and got many subscribers to a paper with this in view. They were sum- 
moned before the Court in Boston, March 13th, 1639, when John Smith was fined 
twenty pounds, and committed during the pleasure of the Court ; Richard Sylvester 
was disfranchised, and fined forty shillings ; Ambrose Morton was fined ten pounds ; 
John Spur, twenty pounds ; James Brittane was sentenced to be whipped eleven 
stripes, because he could not pay his fine ; and Lenthal was required to appear at 
the next Court. He went to Rhode Island, and we find him there with Clarke. It 
is hard to understand exactly what his views were, but the ' Massachusetts Records ' 
say he held ' that only baptism was the door of entrance into the visible Church,' 
such a Church ' as all baptized ones might communicate in,' which looks like adult 
baptism. 

John Miles and the Baptist Chuech at Swansea, Mass. So far as is known 
Miles was the first Welsh Baptist minister who ever crossed the Atlantic. He was 
born in 1621, at Newton, near the junction of the historic rivers, Olchon and Escle. 
He matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford, March 11th, 1636, and is on record 
as 'a minister of the Gospel' in 1649, in which year he formed the first Strict Com- 
munion Church at Ilston, near Swanzea, Wales (so spelled at that time, according to 
Thomas), now Swansea. His love of truth, his art in organization, together with his 
perseverance and courage, soon made him a leader in the denomination ; and in 1651 
we find him representing the Welsh Baptists at the Minister's Meeting in London. 
Persecution soon selected him as one of its first victims, and when the cruel Act of 
Uniformity, 1662, ejected two thousand ministers, and opened all sorts of new suffer- 
ings to God's servants, he, with a large number of his Church, removed to America, 
carrying their Church records with them, which are still preserved. They settled at 
Wannamoiset, then within the bounds of Rehoboth, but afterward, 1667, called 
Swansea, and but ten miles from Providence, though in the Plymouth Colony. 

The finger of God guided them to this as a field prepared for Baptist culture, 
and a fruitful one it became. In 1646 Obadiah Holmes had removed there from 
Salem, of which Church he had been a member and united with the Congregational 



THE SWANSEA CHURCH ORGANIZED. 299 

Church, under the pastoral charge of Mr. Newman. But, in some way he and eight 
others had imbibed Baptist principles, possibly from Williams, and in 1649 they 
established a separate meeting of their own. For this they were excommunicated 
and punished by the civil authority. The whole commonwealth of Plymouth was 
stirred and petitions against them came pouring in, one signed by all the clergy of 
the colony except two, and one from the government of Massachusetts itself. In 
June, 1650, Holmes and Joseph Torrey were bound to appear at the next court, and 
in October they, with eight others, were indicted by the Grand Jury. It is difficult 
to lind what penalty was inflicted on them, but, suffice it, their meeting was broken 
up, and Holmes, with most of his brethren, removed to Newport, where, in due 
time, he became the pastor of the Baptist Church. The following is the present- 
ment by the grand inquest : ' October the 2d, 1650. We, whose names are heer 
under written, being the grand inquest, doe present to this Court, John Hazael, Mr. 
Edward Smith and wife, Obadiah Holmes, Joseph Tory and his wife, and the wife 
of James Man, William Deuell and his wife, of the town of Rehoboth, for continue- 
ing of a meeting uppon the Lord's day from house to house, contrary to the order 
of this Court enacted June 12th, 1650.' 8 

Things were in this condition when Miles and his brethren arrived on the 
ground, and in 1663, soon after their arrival, they formed the first Baptist Church 
in what is now the State of Massachusetts. Seven men, whose names have come 
down to us with that of ' John Miles' at their head (the names of the females are 
not given), formed a Church covenant in the house of John Butterworth, and a 
noble band they were. From the first, Miles was a favorite in the community, and 
on March 13th, 1666, the people of Rehoboth voted that he should lecture for them 
on the Sabbath and once in two weeks on the week-day. After the death of Mr. 
Newman, who opposed Miles earnestly, Mr. Symmes had preached for several 
years in the Pedobaptist Church, and still preached there. Hence this action made 
great disturbance. So, May 23d, the town agreed : ' That a third man alone for 
the work of the ministry should be forthwith looked for, and such an one as may 
preach to the satisfaction of the whole, if it be the will of God, for the settling of 
peace amongst us.' Richard Bullock protested against this act ' as the sole work of 
the Church.' This infant Church suffered various legal difficulties, and the Court at 
Plymouth fined Miles five pounds, July 2d, 1667, for setting up a public meeting 
without the knowledge and approbation of the Court. They were ordered to stop 
the meeting where it was then held, but if they would remove to another point, 
and behaved well there, perhaps they might be permitted to remain in the colony. 

Soon after, this Church was brought face to face with a new and great danger. 
Finding that they were decent citizens after all their heterodoxy, the colony was 
disposed to give them a grant of land, and did so : to ' Captain Thomas Willet, Mr. 
Paine, Sr., Mr. Brown, John Allen, and John Butterworth,' as trustees for a new 
town. Willet and Paine were not Baptists, the others were, and amongst other 



300 A SNARE ESCAPED. 

things Willet proposed : ' That no erroneous persons be admitted into the township.' 
This tried the metal of the Welsh brethren on the tenet of soul-liberty, of which 
subject they knew but little, and well-nigh tripped. Glad to find a j)lace where 
they could worship God in peace, they ' gathered and assembled ' as a Church, and 
addressed an ' explication ' to the trustees, in which they conceded, that 

' Such as hold damnable heresies, inconsistent with the faith of the Gospel ; as, 
to deny the Trinity, or any person therein ; the deity or sinless humanity of Christ, 
or the union of both natures in him, or his full satisfaction to the divine justice of 
all his elect, by his active and passive obedience, or his resurrection, ascension into 
heaven, intercession, or his second coming personally to judgment ; or else to deny 
the truth or divine authority of the Scriptures, or the resurrection of the dead, or 
to maintain any merit of works, consubstantiation, transubstantiation, giving divine 
adoration to any creature, or any other antichristian doctrine, directly opposing the 
priestly, prophetical, or kingly offices of Christ, or any part thereof ; or such as 
hold such opinions as are inconsistent with the well-being of the place, as to deny the 
magistrates power to punish evil doers, as well as to encourage those that do well, or to 
deny the first day of the week to be observed by divine institution as the Lord's day 
or Christian Sabbath, or to deny the giving of honor to whom honor is due, or to 
oppose those civil respects that are usually performed according to the laudable cus- 
toms of our nation each to other, as bowing the knee or body, etc., or else to deny 
the office, use, or authority of the ministry, or a comfortable maintenance to be due 
to them from such as partake of their teachings, or to speak reproachfully of any 
of the Churches of Christ in the country, or of any such other Churches of Christ in 
the country, or of any such other Churches as are of the same common faith with us 
or them ; all such might be excluded ! ' 9 

What were those Welshmen thinking about ? Clearly, they had not been to 
school at Salem yet, and we may be thankful that they were corresponding with a 
militia officer and not forming a new State, or, in a short time, Swansea would have 
been as bad as Glamorganshire, from which they had fled. They remind one of 
birds in the stress of storm, who make for the first bright light, and in their joy 
dash themselves against it to destruction, rather than use it as a guide. But their 
folly is more apparent still when we find them drawing a distinction between essen- 
tial and non-essential Christian doctrines thus : 

' We desire that it be also understood and declare that this is not understood of 
any holding any opinion different from others in any disputable point, yet in contro- 
versy among the godly learned, the belief thereof not being essentially necessary to 
salvation ; such as pedobaptism, antipedobaptism, church discipline or the like ; but 
that the minister or ministers of the said town may take their liberty to baptize 
infants or grown persons as the Lord shall persuade their consciences, and so also 
the inhabitants take their liberty to bring their children to baptism or to forbear.' 

It is slightly comforting that they were so far in advance of the neighboring 
colonies as to allow their neighbors to christen their children, if ' the Lord shall 
persuade their consciences,' while their neighbors would not allow them to be im- 
mersed on their faith in Christ, whether the Lord had persuaded their consciences 
thereto or not. Still, as Baptists, they were far enough from hard-pan at that 
time, on the subject of religious liberty. A little of Roger Williams's back-bone 



MASSACHUSETTS ON INFANT BAPTISM. 301 

would not have hurt them at all, or even a bit of honest John Price's old Welsh 
obstinacy. He was a Baptist minister at Dolan, who endured great persecution, and 
died at Nantmel, 1673. He would not conform to the Church of England in any 
thing, and as that Church always buried its dead with the head toward the west, 
he ordered his buried toward the east. Then, a brass plate was to be put on his 
grave-stone to certify that he would not conform to their whims dead or alive. 

John Miles soon became a power in all the region round about. December 
19th, 1674, the town appointed him master of a school, at a salary of forty pounds 
per annum, 'for teaching grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic, and the tongues of Latin, 
Greek and Hebrew, also to read English and to write.' His house was made the 
garrison for the military forces when the town was assaulted in the Indian War 
under King Philip, June 24th, 1675. The Church multiplied and became strong, 
taking deep root in the colony. They built their first meeting-house about three 
miles north-east of Warren, and in 1679 a new one at Kelley's Bridge, with a par- 
sonage for Miles. But they were stoutly opposed, until the whole region became 
Baptist. It is reported of their pastor, that once when brought before the magis- 
trates for preaching, he asked for a Bible, and turning to Job xix, 28, read : ' Te 
should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me ? ' 
He said no more, but sat down and the Court so felt the power of the passage that, 
instead of cruelty, he was treated with kindness. He died at Tyler's Point, Febru- 
ary 3d, 1683. 

We have seen that the authorities of Massachusetts were sorely tried with the 
leniency of Plymouth in the case of Holmes and his compeers at Rehoboth, but as. 
they could do nothing further in that direction, they proceeded at once to make 
things as stringent as possible for the persecution of Baptists in their own jurisdiction. 
Judging by their excited condition, a plague broke out in the colony which might 
be designated the ' anabaptistical-phobia,' and fright seized them as if some one had 
been bitten by a live Baptist. The General Court caught the disease badly, and on 
the 13th of November, 1644, decreed : 

' It is ordered and decreed, that if any person or persons, within this jurisdic- 
tion, shall either openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants, or go about 
secretly to seduce others from the approbation or use thereof, or shall purposely 
depart the congregation at the ministration of the ordinance, or shall deny the ordi- 
nance of magistracy, or the lawful right and authority to make war, or to punish the 
outward breakers of the first table, and shall appear to the Court willfully and obsti- 
nately to continue therein after due time and means of conviction, every such person 
or persons shall be sentenced to banishment.' 

But the reasons which they give in the preamble, are, if possible, more express- 
ive of their unhappy condition than the law itself ; hence, they use these words to 
introduce the enactment : 

' Forasmuch as experience hath plentifully and often proved that, since the 
first arising of the Anabaptists, about one hundred years since, they have been the 



302 VER-A CTION AND RE A CTION. 

incendiaries of the commonwealths and the infectors of persons in many matters of 
religion, and the troubles of Churches in all places where they have been, and that 
they who have held the baptizing of infants unlawful have usually held other errors 
or heresies together therewith, though they have, as other heretics nsed to do, con- 
cealed the name till they spied out a fit advantage and opportunity to vent them by 
way of question or scruple ; and whereas clivers of this kind have, since our coming 
into New England, appeared amongst ourselves, some whereof have, as others before 
them, denied the ordinance of magistracy, and the lawfulness of making war, and 
others the lawfulness of magistrates and their inspection into any breach of the first 
table ; which opinions, if they should be connived at by us, are like to be increased 
amongst us, and so must necessarily bring guilt upon us, infection and trouble to the 
Churches, and hazard to the whole commonwealth.' 

This state of high fever brought the patient to a crisis, and left him extremely 
weak when the black train of his dreams and horrible bugbears had passed away. 
In other words, it was the beginning of the end with religious tyranny in Massachu- 
setts, and under the ruling of divine Wisdom this was the best day's work that its 
Court ever did for that present glorious State. Men of conscience and common 
sense felt it a sorry time when their common brethren in Christ Jesus had 
come to be ' banished ' as ' heretics ' in a free" land, for opposing the baptism of 
infants, or leaving a congregation where it was practiced, as hazarding the exist- 
ence of a Christian commonwealth, and bringing ' guilt ' upon the venerable heads of 
those who could not keep their hands off the ' first table ' of God's law. As might 
have been expected, this abuse of power awakened a heart-felt indignation all over 
the colony, for it touched the consciences of men, and without guise or pretense, 
assumed control over them. Remonstrance and petition soon found expression ; many 
petitions against the law and others for its continuance came in from various 
sources, some in March, 1645, others in May, 1646. Yet the Court not only refused 
to repeal the law, but even to alter or explain it, although Samuel Maverick, Dr. 
Child and five others of great influence, not Baptists, threatened to appeal to 
Parliament on this and other subjects of grievance. The Court was compelled to 
issue a ' Declaration ' to the people in its own defense, in which they were weak 
enough to confess that the Baptists were ' peaceable ' citizens amongst them. They 
say, November 4th, 1646, to those that 

' Are offended also at our law against Anabaptists. The truth is, the great 
trouble we have been put unto and hazard also, by familistical and anabaptistical 
spirits, whose conscience and religion hath been only to set forth themselves and 
raise contentions in the country, did provoke lis to provide for our safety by a law, 
that all such should take notice how unwelcome they should be unto us, either coming 
or staying. But for such as differ from us only in judgment, in point of baptism, 
or some other points of less consequence, and live peaceably amongst us, without 
occasioning disturbance, etc., such have no cause to complain, for it hath never 
been as yet put in execution against any of them, although some are known to live 
amongst us.' 

Why could they not leave Pilate alone in history, to wash his hands in 
innocency ? That business belonged to the Old, not the New, World. Every syl- 



WINSLOWS LAME APOLOGY. 30S 

lable here shows their misgivings and counter consciousness touching their own law. 
They begin by depreciating their enactment into a ' notice ;' the law itself says that 
it is a provision for ' banishment.' They say that the Baptist ' conscience and 
religion' have raised 'contentions in the country;' their law itself says that they 
were ' incendiaries of the commonwealth.' Here, they taper down the Baptist 
offense to a difference ' from us only in judgment in point of baptism ; ' the law calls 
them 'heretics' and 'troublers of Churches.' Their Declaration says that those 
Baptists who 'live peaceably amongst us, without occasioning disturbance, shall 
have no cause to complain ; ' but their law also says that it is disturbance of itself, 
'to openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants, or go about secretly to 
seduce others from the approbation or use thereof, or shall purposely depart the 
congregation at the ministration of the ordinance.' And finally, their appeal to the 
public says that ' some of the Baptists were known to live peaceably amongst us,' but to 
deny the right of the magistrates' authority to punish the outward breakers of the first 
table, is a just reason why they should ' be sentenced to banishment,' and this the 
most ' peaceful ' of them denied. It is a sure thing that both their ' Tenet ' and its 
commentary need washing again thoroughly. Complaints went over to England, 
and as there was now no chance to glory over this matter under the pretense of 
civil wrong-doing, as in the case of Roger Williams, the thing must be met there 
on its naked merits, as a square act of religious tyranny. Hence, Governor 
"Wmslow was sent to England to answer this charge. 10 

Brought to an account before the home government, it was demanded of him . 
' Yon have a severe law against Anabaptists, yea, one was whipt at Massachusetts 
for his religion ? And your law banisheth them ? ' To which the gracious old 
governor meekly answered : ' 'Tis true, the Massachusetts government have such a 
law as to banish, but not to whip in that kind. And certain men desiring some 
mitigation of it ; it was answei"ed in my hearing : 'Tis true, we have a severe law, 
but we never did, or will, execute the rigor of it upon any, and have men living 
amongst us, nay, some in our Churches of that judgment, and as long as they carry 
themselves peacefully as hitherto they do, we will leave them to God, ourselves 
having performed the duty of brethren to them. And whereas, there was one 
whipt amongst us, 'tis true we knew his judgment what it was; but had he not 
carried himself so contemptuously toward the authority God hath betrusted us with 
in an high exemplary measure, we had never so censured him ; and, therefore, he 
may thank himself who suffered as an evil doer in that respect. But the reason 
whereof we are loath either to repeal or alter the law is, because we would have it 
remain in force to bear witness against their judgment and practice, which we 
conceive them to be erroneous.' a 

The person reported by the governor as whipped here was Thomas Painter, of 
Hingham, whose contemptuous crime against the ' authority ' of the magistrates 
consisted in refusing to have his child christened. True, the governor said, they 
had no law ' to whip in that kind,' which only aggravates their crime against 
humanity, for they did whip him, law or no law, and for what the governor says, 
thev knew to be simply his ' judgment.' But from the mild manner in which he 

22 



304 LADY MOODY. 

speaks of this harmless law, as a mere verbal ' witness ' against ' erroneous ' ' judgment 
and practice,' on the part of the Baptists, they wished the British government to 
understand and treat it as a dead-letter. Indeed, he gives the promise in the name 
of Massachusetts, whose representative he was, that although the law is severe, ' we 
never did, or will, execute the rigor of it upon any.' How did Massachusetts keep 
this sacred promise ? We shall see. 

The feeling engendered in England by this new crusade against ' heretics ' in 
America, 1645, was very deep. Some, who had persecuted the Baptists there, sup- 
ported the colony in its rigor, and some condemned it severely. Richard Holling- 
worth said : ' Our belief of New England is, that they would suffer the godly and 
peaceable to live amongst them, though they differ in point of Church government 
from them.' And another author, a member of John Goodwin's congregation, 
' J. P.,' wrote in as cool a strain : ' Why do not our Congregational divines write to 
the brethren of New England, and convince them of their error, who give, as some 
say, the civil magistrate a power to question doctrines, censure errors ? Sure we 
are some have been imprisoned, some banished, that pleaded religion and mere 
conscience, and were no otherwise disturbers of the civil peace than the Congrega- 
tional way is like to be here. If Old England be said to persecute for suppressing 
sects and opinions because threatening the truth and civil peace, why may not the 
same name be put upon New England, who are found in the same work and way?' 
Another thing which deepened the intense feeling on the subject was, that works 
on infant baptism, pro and con, began to flood the colony, and the people eagerly 
inquired what all these terribly blighting opinions of the ' Anabaptists ' were ; and 
when they found that the bugaboo lodged in the right of a man to keep his con- 
science whole in choosing to baptize his child or not, like reasonable beings they 
began also to think whether or not it were rather desirable to exercise such 
freedom where Jehovah had exacted no such service. Discussion was all that the 
Baptists needed to arrest this tyranny, and the law of 1644 had unintentionally thrown 
the door wide open for such discussion. Hulbard speaks of ' many books coming 
out of England in the year 1645, some in defense of Anabaptism and other errors, 
and for liberty of conscience, as a shelter for a general toleration of all opinions.' 

As far back as 1643 Lady Deborah Moody, who had bought a farm of 400 
acres at Swampscott, was obliged to remove to Gravesend, Long Island, ' for deny- 
ing infant baptism.' Winthrop says of her : ' The Lady Moody, a wise and 
amiable religious woman, being taken with the errors of denying infant baptism, 
was dealt withal by many of the elders and others, and admonished by the Church 
at Salem. ... To avoid further trouble, she removed to the Dutch, against the 
advice of her friends. Many others infested with Anabaptism removed thither also. 
She was after excommunicated.' 12 True, she was a member of the Salem Church, 
which she united with April 5th, 1640, but lived in the Bay Colony, and left it ' to 
avoid further trouble.' Salem had become disturbed also on this Baptist issue, for 



NEW PERSECUTIONS. 30S 

July 8th, 1645, Townsend Bishop, a prominent man there, was ' presented,' says 
Felt, for ' turning his back on the ceremony of infant baptism.' He adds with 
significance, ' he soon left the town.' 

But the authorities began to punish Baptists in Massachusetts Bay, under the 
law of 1644. William "Witter, of Lynn, was arraigned before the Essex Quarterly 
Court, February, 1646, for saying that ' they who stayed while a child is baptized 
do worship the devil.' Martha West and Henry Collense testify that he charged 
such persons with breaking the Sabbath and taking the name of the Trinity in vain. 
Brother Witter certainly did give very free use to his tongue, but the Court had an 
effectual cure for all 'heretics' who did that. The law would not connive at such 
'opinions,' they were a 'hazard to the whole commonwealth;' he had openly con- 
demned infant baptism, and had ' purposely ' departed ' the congregation at the 
ministration of the ordinance,' and for such wickedness he must be recompensed. 
He was sentenced to make a public confession before the congregation at Lynn, 
on the next Sabbath, or be censured at the next General Court. John Wood was 
arraigned the next day before the same Court ' for professing Anabaptist sentiments 
and withholding his children from baptism,' and John Spur was bound to pay 
a fine of £2.0. On July 13th, 1651, Spur was expelled from the Boston Church, 
' because he ceased to commune with them, on the belief that their baptism, singing 
of psalms and covenant, were human inventions.' By this time a spirit of general 
discontent was settling down upon the public mind, and persons in various places 
were beginning to express their sympathy for the Baptists and to adopt their senti- 
ments on the subject of infant baptism ; a state of things which the magistrates 
found it difficult to repress, and which at last forced not only resistance, but direct 
aggression, as the surest method of self-defense. Relief was found only in assuming 
a firm position and a determined stand against such grinding tyranny. If these 
Baptists stayed away from Congregational Churches, where they were unhappy, 
those Churches forced them to attend and treated them shamefully for not coming ; 
then, if they went at their command, their presence made these Churches equally 
unhappy. They were disturbers of the peace when they kept away, and they were 
contentious when they went ; a contradictory state of things which must cure itself, 
being a slander on the Lamb of God and a disgrace to the seventeenth century. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE BOSTON BAPTISTS. 

FIERCE bigotry and intolerance did much for the ancient Baptists in Jerusalem 
of old, and this history repeated itself in Boston during the year 1651. The 
story is very simple. William Witter, a plain old farmer, lived at Swampscott, near 
Lynn, and was a member of the Congregational Church there. As far back as 
February 28th, 1643, he renounced infant baptism, and was brought before the 
Court, charged with speaking indecently of that ordinance. But having made some 
sort of an apology, he was arraigned a second time, February 18th, 1646, and was 
formally excommunicated July 24th, 1651, ' for absenting himself from the public 
ordinances nine months or more and for being rebaptized." x Meanwhile he had 
become a member of Clarke's Church at Newport ; at what time does not appear, 
but evidently some time before, as he had not attended the Church at Lynn for 
more than nine months. Having become blind as well as old, and living little, 
if any thing, less than seventy-five miles from his Church, he was unable to attend 
its communion or to share its Christian sympathy and fellowship, all his surround- 
ings being hostile to him. Whether he had invited a visit from representatives of 
the Newport Church, or they were prompted to visit him in his affliction, is not 
stated, but the Church records say : ' Three of the brethren, namely, Mr. John 
Clarke, pastor, Obadiah Holmes and James Crandall, were taken upon the Lord's 
day, July 20th, 1651, at the house of one of the brethren whom they went to visit ; 
namely, William Witter, in the town of Lyn.' But it is clear from the record 
itself that he was a ' brother ' in that Church, as Backus calls him ; also Arnold, in 
his ' History of Rhode Island,' calls him ' an aged member,' and Dr. Palfrey men- 
tions him as a ' brother in the Church of Baptists.' 

The above named three started on this mission of love worthy of Jesus himself 
and an honor to his servants. They passed quietly on their long journey, possibly 
through Boston, and reached Witter's home on Saturday night, hoping for a quiet 
Sabbath under a Christian roof. But this was criminal, much as Peter and John 
sinned against Jerusalem by helping a poor cripple there. When the Sabbath 
dawned they thought that they would ' worship God in their own way on the Lord's 
day ' in Witter's family. Yes ; but what right had they to think any such thing ? 
Did they not know that it was a crime to worship God ' in your own way,' even 
under your own roof, in Massachusetts ? Notwithstanding this Clarke began to 
preach God's word, from Rev. iii, 10, to Witter's family, his two traveling com- 



WITTERS HOUSE INVADED. 307 

panions, and, as he says, to ' four or five strangers that came in unexpected 
after I had begun.' Quite likely those sinners of the Gentiles, John Wood, 
Joseph Rednap and Roger Scott, were all present. Wood had been tried, February 
19th, 1646, for ' professing Anabaptist sentiments and withholding his children from 
baptism ; ' Rednap had broken the law in usually ' departing from the congregation 
at the time of administering the seal of baptism ; ' 2 and Scott was that drowsy 
sinner who was tried by the Court, February 28th, 1643, ' for common sleeping at 
the public exercise upon the Lord's day, and for striking him that waked him,' and 
was ' severely whipped ' for the same in the ensuing December. This deponent 
saith not whether he really was at Witter's, or, if so, whether he wanted a quiet nap 
unaroused by a pugnacious Puritan Dogberry; perhaps he thought that a stirring 
Baptist sermon was just the novelty to keep him wide awake on that Sunday and in 
that particular place. 

But no matter who was there, Clarke had begun to preach powerfully on the 
faithfulness of God to his people in the hour of temptation, when two constables 
invaded the farm-house, rushing in with a warrant from Robert Bridges, the ' ordi- 
nary ; ' and the Newport brethren were brought before this officer of justice as 
prisoners. Bridges insisted that they should attend service at the State Church, and 
they insisted that they would not, Clarke said : ' If thou forcest us into your 
assembly we cannot hold communion with them.' Clarke was very clear-headed, 
but he mistook the 'squire, for it was not ' communion ' that he was aiming at. 
The law required all to attend the State Church, and, therefore, them ; and go they 
should anyhow, so they were forced into the assembly. Clarke says that when he 
was taken in he removed his hat and ' civilly saluted them,' but when he had been 
conducted to a seat he put on his hat, i opened my book and fell to reading.' This 
troubled the ' ordinary,' and he commanded the constable to ' pluck off our hats, 
which he did, and where he laid mine there I let it lie.' When the service closed 
Clarke desired to speak to the congregation, but silence was commanded and the 
prisoners were removed. Some liberty was granted them on Monday, which they 
used, as Paul and Silas used theirs at Philippi, when they entered into the house of 
Lydia and exhorted the brethren. So here, Clarke and his brethren entered the 
house of Witter and actually shocked the magistrates by commemorating the love 
of Jesus together in observing the Lord's Supper. This act filled the cup of their 
iniquity to the brim, and it was probably the main object of their visit. 

On Monday they were removed to Boston and cast into prison, the charges 
against them being, for ' disturbing the congregation in the afternoon, for draw- 
ing aside others after their erroneous judgments and practices, and for suspicion 
of rebaptizing one or more amongst us.' Clarke was fined £20, Holmes £30, 
Crandall £5, and on refusal to pay they were ' to be well whipped,' although 
Winslow had told the English government that they had no law c to whip in that 
kind.' Edwards says that while ' Mr. Clarke stood stripped at the whipping-post 



S08 HOLMES ' UNMERCIFULLY' WHIPPED. 

some humane person was so affected with the sight of a scholar, a gentleman and 
reverend divine, in such a situation, that he, with a sum of money, redeemed him 
from his bloody tormentors.' Before this he had asked the Court : ' What law of 
God or man had he broken, that his back must be given to the tormentors for it, or 
he be despoiled of his goods to the amount of £20 ? ' To which Endicott replied : 
'You have denied infant baptism and deserve death, going up and down, and 
secretly insinuating into them that be weak, but cannot maintain it before our 
ministers.' Clarke tells us ' that indulgent and tender-hearted friends, without my 
consent and contrary to my judgment, paid the fine.' 3 Thus some one paid the 
fine of Clarke and Crandall, and proposed to pay that of Holmes. The first two 
were released, whether they assented or not, but Holmes who was a man of learning, 
and who afterward succeeded Dr. Clarke as pastor of the Newport Church, would 
not consent to the paying of his fine, and because he refused he was whipped thirty 
stripes, September 6th, 1651. He said that he ' durst not accept of deliverance in 
such a way.' He was found guilty of ' hearing a sermon in a private manner,' or, 
as the mittimus issued by Robert Bridges expresses it, 

' For being taken by the constable at a private meeting at Lin, upon the Lord's 
day, exercising among themselves, to whom divers of the town repaired and joined 
with them, and that in time of public exercise of the worship of Cod ; as also for 
offensively disturbing the peace of the congregation, at their coming into the public 
meeting in the time of prayer, in the afternoon, and for saying and manifesting that 
the Church in Lin was not constituted according to the order of our Lord. . . . 
And for suspicion of their having their hands in rebaptizing of one or more.' 

Bancroft says that he was whipped ' unmercif ully,' and Governor Jenks, ' that 
for many days, if not some weeks, he could take no rest but upon his knees and 
elbows, not being able to suffer any part of his body to touch the bed whereon he 
lay.' While enduring this torture, he joined his Lord on the cross and Stephen, in 
praying that this sin might not be laid to the charge of his persecutors ; and when 
his lacerated flesh quivered and blood streamed from his body, so powerfully did 
the grace of the Crucified sustain him that he cheerfully said to his tormentors : 
' You have struck me as with roses ! ' 

His remarkable words call to mind the superhuman saying of another noted 
Baptist, James Bainham, the learned Barrister of the Middle Temple, who was 
martyred in the days of Henry VIII. Fox shows (ii, p. 246) that he repudiated the 
baptism of infants. Sir Thomas More lashed him to the whipping-post in his 
own house at Chelsea, and the whip drew blood copiously from his back ; then, 
when he was burning at the stake, his legs and arms being half-consumed, he 
exclaimed in triumph : ' O, ye Papists ! behold ye look for miracles, and here you 
may see a miracle. In this fire I feel no more pain than if I were in a bed of down ; 
it is to me as a bed of roses ! ' Holmes had much of this noble martyr's spirit. 
Most touchingly he himself wrote : 



CHRISTIAN SYMPATHY PUNISHED. 309 

' I said to the people, though my flesh should fail and my spirit should fail, yet 
God will not fail ; so it pleased the Lord to come in and so to fill my heart and 
tongue as a vessel full, and with an audible voice I break forth, praying unto the 
Lord not to lay this sin to their charge, and telling the people that now I found he 
did not fail me, and, therefore, now I should trust him forever who failed me not. 
For, in truth, as the strokes fell upon me I had such a spiritual manifestation of 
God's presence as the like thereof I never had, nor can with fleshy tongue express, 
and the outward pain was so removed from me, that, indeed, I am not able to declare 
it to you. It was so easy to me that I could well bear it ; yea, and in a manner felt 
it not, although it was grievous, as the spectators said, the man striking with all his 
strength — yea, spitting on his hands three times, as many affirmed — with a three-corded 
whip, giving me therewith thirty strokes. When he had loosened me from the post, 
having joyfulness in my heart and cheerfulness in my countenance, as the spectators 
observed, I told the magistrates, you have struck me as with roses, and said, more- 
over, although the Lord hath made it easy to me, yet I pray God it may not be laid 
to your charge.' 

The vengeful feeling of the authorities toward these harmless men illustrates 
the severity which was intended. During their examination, Governor Endicott 
charged them with being ' Anabaptists,' said they ' deserved death,' and that ' they 
would not have such trash brought into their dominion.' The Court lost its temper, 
and even John Wilson, a clergyman of a very gentle spirit, struck Holmes, and 
said : ' The curse of God go with thee ; ' to which the sufferer replied :. ' I bless God 
I am counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus.' After the whipping of 
Holmes, thirteen persons suffered in one way or another for the sympathy which 
they manifested for him and were unable to repress. John Spur and John Hazel 
were sentenced to receive ten lashes, or a fine of forty shillings each. Their crime 
was, that they had taken the holy confessor by the hand when he was led to the 
whipping-post by the executioner. This fine was paid by their friends without their 
consent. The story which they both tell in detail, of their arrest under warrants 
issued by Increase Nowel, as well as of their trial and sufferings for greeting their 
abused brother, are most affecting. Hazel being about sixty years of age and 
infirm, had come fifty miles to comfort his friend Holmes in prison. Professor 
Knowles tells us that this old Simeon from Rehoboth died before he reached his 
home. The saint paid a severe penalty for allowing his soft old heart to pity a poor 
lacerated brother, who had left his noble wife and eight children to visit the blind 
in his affliction. 

This outrage aroused the most bitter resentment everywhere, and to his 
honor it should be known to the end of the world, that Richard Saltonstall, one of 
the first magistrates of Massachusetts, who was then in England, sent a dignified 
and indignant letter, dated April 25th, 1652, to Rev. Messrs. Cotton and Wilson, in 
which he wrote : 

' It doth not a little grieve my spirit to hear what sad things are reported daily 
of your tyranny and persecutions in New England, as that you fine, whip, and im- 
prison men for their consciences. First, you compel such to come into your assem- 



310 RICHARD 8ALT0NSTALL REMONSTRATES. 

blies as you know will not join with yon in worship, and when they show their dis- 
like thereof, and witness against it, then you stir up your magistrates to punish them 
for such as you conceive their public affronts. . . . These rigid ways have laid you 
very low in the hearts of the saints. I do assure you that I have heard them pray 
in the public assemblies that the Lord would give you meek and humble spirits, not 
to strive so much for uniformity as to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of 
peace. When I was in Holland, about the beginning of our wars, I remember some 
Christians there, that then had serious thoughts of planting in New England, desired 
me to write to the governor thereof, to know if those that differ from you in 
opinion, yet holding the same foundation in religion, as Anabaptists, Seekers, Anti- 
nomians, and the like, might be permitted to live among you, to which I received 
this short answer from your then governor, Mr. Dudley: " God forbid," said he, 
" our love for the truth should be grown so cold that we should tolerate errors." 
I hope you do not assume to yourselves infallibility of judgment. . . . We pray for 
you and wish you prosperity every way ; hoped the Lord would have given you so 
much light and love there, that you might have been eyes to God's people here, and 
not to practice these courses in the wilderness which you went so far to prevent.' 4 

Cotton undertook in reply to justify the dark deed, and made as shameful a 
failure as ever an inquisitor made in defense of the Inquisition. He saw nothing 
in Holmes's conduct but willful obstinacy, and if a citizen is obstinate in his opinions 
is it not the bounden duty of the magistrates to whip it out ? And so he threw the 
entire responsibility upon the victim himself. These are his words : 

' As for his whipping, it was more voluntarily chosen by him than inflicted on 
him. His censure by the Court was to have paid, as I know, thirty pounds or else 
be whipped ; his fine was offered to be paid by friends for him freely ; but he chose 
rather to be whipped ; in which case, if his suffering of stripes was any worship of 
God at all, surely it could be accounted no better than will-worship.'' 

So obtuse was his conscience in all that related to the freedom of man's soul in 
the worship of God, that he could not see the base injustice of fining a man for his 
convictions of duty to God, and then whipping him because he would not consent 
to recognize the righteousness of his own punishment by paying an unjust fine. 
Governor Jenks, of Rhode Island, understood the matter as Holmes understood it, 
and in writing, early in the eighteenth century, said : 

' The paying of a fine seems to be but a small thing in comparison of a man's 
parting with his religion, yet the paying of a fine is the acknowledgment of a trans- 
gression ; and for a man to acknowledge that he has transgressed, when his con- 
science tells him he has not, is but little, if any thing at all, short of parting with 
his religion.' 

But, with the heartlessness of a stone, Cotton says : ' The imprisonment of either 
of them was no detriment. I believe they fared neither of them better at home, 
and I am sure Homes had not been so well clad in many years before.' He evi- 
dently respected Holmes's coat more than the shoulders which it covered. He con- 
tinues : 

'We believe there is a vast difference between men's inventions and God's 
institutions. We fled from men's inventions, to which we else should have been com- 



THIS WHIPPING UNIA WFUL. 3 1 1 

pelled ; we compel none to men's inventions. If our ways, rigid ways as you call 
them, have laid us low in the hearts of God's people, yea, and of the saints, as you 
style them, we do not believe it is any part of their saintship.' 5 

All this is rendered the more humiliating, when we keep in mind that the entire 
transaction was unlawful. The statute of November 13th, 1644, called for the 
' banishment ' of Baptists, but Winslow said that they had no law ' to whip in that 
kind ; ' hence, the wanton cruelty of the whole case, without even the show or pre- 
tense of law. Possibly this may account for the fact that so many able historians 
have passed it by in silence. Johnson does not refer to it in his History of 1654, 
nor Morton in his Memorial of 1669, nor Hubbard in his History of 1680, nor 
Mather in his of 1702. Others, who did make the record, generally palliated the 
conduct of the persecutors as best they could. But it was left for Dr. Palfrey, in 
the latter half of the nineteenth century, to make light of this helpless confessor's 
suffering, by expressing his suspicion that the magistrates sought ' to vindicate what 
they thought the majesty of the law, at little cost to the delinquent.' It is difficult 
to understand how a grave historian can, with any show of seriousness, maintain that 
the majesty of law was jeoparded by refusing to attend a State Church, and by taking 
the Lord's Supper elsewhere without disturbing any one ; or if it were, that it could 
be vindicated by plowing furrows amongst the muscles and nerves of a Christian's 
back till it was raw. Besides, there was no law to be vindicated in this case. The 
statutes against the Baptists, as we see, provided that they should be banished, not 
flogged. If this brutal beating were a mere perfunctory farce, why was it necessary 
to deal out upon the quivering flesh of Holmes the last lash up to thirty ? Increase 
Nowel was a ruling elder in the Church, the judges sat in its chief seats, and 
should have remembered the cruel scourging of their Saviour by a heartless judge. 
Instead, as Edwards says, ' with a whip of three cords belaboring his back till poor 
Holmes's flesh was reduced to jelly,' so they recollected their Redeemer in his servant. 
The thirty lashes with the three-corded whip counted ninety strokes in all ; though 
others, whipped at the same time for rape and counterfeiting money, received but 
ten ! And what does it count to the honor of his tormentors that the patient suf- 
ferer said : ' Yoii have struck me as with roses ? ' The spiritual exaltation of 
martyrs in all ages has asserted itself by lifting them above physical sufferings, which, 
in themselves, have been most excruciating. Can it be pretended that because poor 
Bainham cried that the flames were like a bed of down, they therefore did not 
reduce his body to a cinder ? Neither can it be claimed that what Holmes called 
' a whip of roses ' did not almost flay him alive. He, himself, tells us that his pangs 
were so ' grievous ' that with strong crying and tears he prayed to him who was able 
to save him, so that neither his flesh nor spirit ' failed,' but like his Master he was 
heard and strengthened to endure what he feared. Surely, Dr. Palfrey's notions of 
law and its ' majesty ' needed as much revision as did his suspicions and tender 
mercies. This whipping of Holmes was as grievous a piece of tyranny as ever was 



312 DRS. PALFREY AND DEXTER. 

inflicted at the hands of Christian men, and it can find no palliation in the divine 
grace vouchsafed to his spiritual support. Often when the body of a holy man is 
the most severely racked, his spirit seems consciously to glance aside and, as it were, 
stand apart from the body to exult in its own superiority to his suffering flesh. 
But all cynical pooh-poohinent of their agonies is unworthy of a man who pretends to 
human consciousness. That soullessness which excuses the whipping of Holmes 
would justify the burning of Latimer and Ridley. 

It was sufficiently painful that Dr. Palfrey should tinge the cheek of the nine- 
teenth century by a gratuitous fling at Holmes's stripes as harmless ; but it was 
reserved for a learned and aged minister of that lowly One who said, ' Inasmuch as 
ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto 
me,' to select for himself the distinction of sneering at this bleeding child of God. 
In 1876 Rev. Dr. Dexter, in his work on Roger Williams, not only cites Palfrey's 
unworthy remark with approval, but on page 145 reveals an unlovely animus in 
doing so, by the sneer : ' Holmes whipped — having insisted itpon it.' Palfrey might 
well have spared the sensibilities of Christ-like men despite the studied finish of his 
sentence, but much less was it needful for this venerable scholar of three-score years 
to wound refined humanity by studied coarseness. Though thrust out of the text, 
in contrast with Palfrey's words and carefully veiled in his Index, no charitable 
man can persuade himself that the Fed sores on Holmes's back would have suited 
the doctor's gloating better had such flowers glowed in a heap at the sufferer's feet, 
as in the case of Bainham. Palfrey knew that his ground was delicate and trod 
lightly, but to use Paul's words of Isaiah, Dr. Dexter ' is very bold,' and rushes 
where Palfrey ' suspected ' that he would like to tread softly. 

Without honor to Massachusetts history, and without throwing one ray of 
light upon this dark blot on its pages, Dr. Dexter has offered himself as the 
apologist of this barbarity toward his Baptist brethren, and for this purpose adopts 
and elaborates a most astounding theory from Dr. Palfrey. He claims that the 
object of this pilgrimage to Swampscott was not to administer spiritual consolation 
to Witter, but as he puts it, to float ' the red flag of the anabaptistical fanaticism ' 
' full in the face of the Bay bull.' In other words, taken from his Index again, 
' Clarke and his party leave Newport to obtain a little persecution in Massachusetts,' 
and that to accomplish a purely political end. His statement of the case is briefly 
this. Some time before, Coddington, of Rhode Island, had gone to London to obtain 
leave from England to institute a separate government for the islands of Rhode 
Island and Canonicut, he to be the governor. Dr. Dexter's words are: 

' In the autumn of 1650 it was understood that he was on his way home with 
this new instrument, and it was further understood that it was Mr. Coddington's 
desire and intention to bring about under it, if possible, the introduction of Rhode 
Island into the confederacy then existing of the other colonies, if not absolutely to 
prevent its annexation to Massachusetts.' Clarke and Coddington were not on 
good terms, and the ' Anabaptist pastor was bitterly opposed to the new-coming 



THIS CRUELTY INEXCUSABLE. 313 

order of things.' ' When the crisis approached, he seems to have felt that a little 
persecution of the Anabaptists — if such a thing could be managed — by Massachu- 
setts, might serve an important purpose in prejudicing the Rhode Island mind 
against Coddington's scheme.' 

Accordingly, the visit to Witter was carefully planned and executed as a means of 
enraging the ' Bay bull ! ' 6 

Possibly, Coddington had the above project in view, and he may have been 
opposed by Clarke ; but certainly and naturally, this cruelty to Holmes raised a 
storm of indignation against its perpetrators. These are the only facts in addition 
to those of the journey itself which Dr. Dexter adduces in support of his proposi- 
tion. It is one of the cardinal principles of jurisprudence that a man is to be held 
innocent until proved to be guilty, and that his motives are to be presumed good 
until shown to be evil. A Christian historian is bound to observe, at least, the 
same measure of just judgment that obtains in ordinary tribunals. And, no candid 
man will conclude that the facts recounted here are inconsistent with good inten- 
tions, or that they point to the conclusion that Holmes and his associates went 
to Massachusetts to carry out a political plot. One who will read Dr. Dexter's 
own account of this transaction with care, will see that the alleged ulterior 
designs are not even inferences from facts. They are supplied entirely by the 
writer himself, and are artfully worked into the thread of the narrative. Outside 
of the common presumption of innocence, the actual occurrences tend distinctly to 
show that the real reason of the visit to Swampscott was the one openly avowed. 
The conduct of the three visitors was that of men who shunned rather than courted 
publicity. If their purpose had been to flaunt the 'red flag full in the face of the 
Bay bull,' they would not have gone quietly to Witter's house and held religious 
service there, almost in secret. They would have made their presence and their 
infraction of the local law as conspicuous as possible. As it was, they were dragged 
from their quiet and seclusion, and forced into a public congregation against their 
will and remonstrance, by a constable. Then, pre-eminent amongst the three, the 
behavior of Holmes after the arrest was simply that of strong convictions and 
heroic consistency. 

Whatever may be said in extenuation of the action of the Puritans of Massa- 
chusetts in this case, and it is little at the most, they were intolerant and inquisi- 
torial. They had come to Xew England not to establish religious freedom, but a 
religious absolutism of their own. As Dr. Dexter naively puts it, they had deter- 
mined • to make their company spiritually homogeneous.' Give them the credit 
of being children of their age for what it is worth ; but the case is entirely 
different with a minister of Jesus, who has breathed the air of Xew England for 
half a century, and is writing in the last quarter of the nineteenth century ; who 
instead of asking for a charitable verdict upon their faults, seeks to justify them, in 
the warp and in the web, and to that end sets himself systematically to revile the 



314 MR. WINS OR' S VIEWS. 

dead who suffered their tyranny. His strictures show him to be so obviously the com- 
mitted advocate of an untenable theory, that with all his acuteness, his dogmatiz- 
ing is not even plausible. Upon him must rest the stain of having imputed to these 
confessors, without the slightest foundation, only wicked intentions in the perform- 
ance of an act of Christian mercy. Bancroft is not alone in saying that Holmes 
was ' whipped unmercifully,' nor Arnold, that he was ' cruelly whipped.' Oliver, in 
his ' Puritan Commonwealth,' says that he was ' livid with the bruises from the lash,' 
and Gay writes in Bryant's ' History of the United States : ' ' Such was his spiritual 
exaltation that when the ghastly spectacle was over, and his clothes were restored to 
him to cover his scored and bloody back, he turned to the magistrates standing by, 
and said, " You have struck me with roses." ' 

A writer of the present day is no more responsible for this treatment of 
Baptists by the Massachusetts authorities, than were their victims, and it is hon- 
orable to the historic pen to hear men who have no special interest in those 
victims, beyond that of common humanity, express their honest convictions, as Mr. 
Winsor, Librarian of Harvard, does in his ' Memorial History of Boston.' He says 
that the 

'Anabaptists' received 'grievous treatment from the magistrates of the 
Puritan commonwealth. . . . Our rulers were most perplexed and dismayed 
by the experience already referred to, namely, the alarming increase in the 
colony of unbaptized, because their parents were not members of the Church. 
. . . It is a sad story. Most pure and excellent and otherwise inoffensive persons 
were the sufferers, and generally patient ones. But the struggle was a brief one. 
The Baptists conquered in it and came to eqiial esteem and love with their brethren. 
Their fidelity was one of the needful and effective influences in reducing the 
equally needful but effective intolerance of the Puritan commonwealth.' 7 

There is, however, a sadly ludicrous side to Dr. Dexter's showing which few 
care to follow. He counts Massachusetts out of his theory entirely, for he fails 
to show that she was in such a lovable frame of mind as to court union with Rhode 
Island and with her frightful 'red flag.' Whether a public proposition for the 
wholesale importation of vipers into the Bay Colony, or a confederation with 
the ' Anabaptistical fanaticism ' of Rhode Island, would have most alarmed that 
commonwealth, it is hard to say. Bryant thinks that 

' These Rhode Island people grew, from the beginning, more and more intol- 
erable to the Boston brethren. It was bad enough that they should obstinately 
maintain the rights of independent thought and private conscience ; it was unpar- 
donable that they should assume to be none the less sincere Christians and good 
citizens, and should succeed in establishing a government of their own on principles 
which the Massachusetts General Court declared was criminal. Even in a common 
peril the Massachusetts magistrates could recognize no tie of old friendship — hardly, 
indeed, of human sympathy — that should bind them to such men.' 8 

Another aspect of this very cheap persecution theory is the jocose assumption 
that the Rhode Island people were obtuse and slow to learn that the ' Bay bull ' ever 



THE CHEAP PERSECUTION THEORY. 315 

did froth at the mouth and tear the turf in violence when he snuffed fresh breezes 
from the Providence plantations and Aquidneck. Sundry occasions had arisen in 
the schooling of the ' fanatical ' colony to educate her, touching the temper of this 
rampant bull of Bashan. Some of her best colonists had been driven out of Massa- 
chusetts, from Williams down ; and Rhode Island must have been a dull scholar 
indeed to have needed a ' little ' new persecution to awaken her, after the lesson of 
November 13th, 1644. 

Last of all, this theory of managing to get up ' a little persecution of the Ana- 
baptists ' to order does not accord with Clarke's acknowledged ability as a politician. 
To be sure he knew that old farmer Witter had been up before the Courts on the 
charge of being an ' Anabaptist ' on two occasions — eight years before this visit and 
five years before — and that he had not been to the Established Church for more than 
' nine months,' all of which should have shown him that the ' Bay bull ' was not 
nearly as furious on that particular farm as in some other places. If this crafty 
elder had wanted to fire the Baptist heart of Rhode Island to some effect, why did 
he not make directly for Boston, instead of leaving it quietly ; and, as he was there 
on Saturday, too, why did he not stay over Sunday, go to Cotton's Church, and 
' flout ' the flag there ? Cotton would have known it in a moment, and by Monday 
night the roaring of the ' bull ' would have traveled on the wings of the wind from 
Plymouth to Providence, from Boston to the horn of Cape Cod. But instead of that, 
he hides himself on Sunday in a Baptist family on an obscure farm two miles 
from a Congregational Church, will not show his face till two constables drag him 
out, will not go to a Congregational Church till dragged into it, and does not act at all 
like a child of his generation, but altogether like an unsophisticated ' child of light.' 
What could the plotter be thinking of to let Mr. Cotton have peace when he was 
within ten miles of him, and when one wave of the 'flag' would have turned 
Boston into Bedlam ? 

Still, these three Newport evangelists might uot have been so verdant, after all, 
as they seemed. These things appear clear to Dr. Dexter, namely : 1. They knew that 
the ' Bay ' kept a persecuting 'bull,' with very long horns, on which to toss defense- 
less Baptists. 2. That it was very excitable, and a ' red ' Baptist flag ' flouted full in 
its face ' was sure to disabuse all minds that had been soothed into the dangerous be- 
lief of its loving and lamb-like disposition ; but, 3. They could hardly know that it 
was kept on that Swampscott farm, or that it would make all Bashan tremble, by 
tearing up the turf generally, even when the ' red flag ' was not ' flouted full in its 
face.' The meshes of Clarke's net are very open if these were his notions, and 
form an extremely thin veil for the eyes of the quick-sighted ' Bay bull.' 

The entire chain of circumstances render it much more rational to interpret this 
visit as having in view the administration of the Lord's Supper to Witter by the 
authority of the Newport Church. This service, on Monday morning, throws a 
strong light upon the entire ti-ansaction. Backus, quoting from the Newport Church 



316 THE MISSION OF THE THREE. 

record, says that the three were ' representatives of the Church in Newport,' and 
that Witter ' being a brother in the Church, by reason of his advanced age, could not 
take so great a journey as to visit the Church.' Arnold, the Rhode Island historian, 
says that ' they were deputed by the Church to visit him, for he ' had requested an 
interview with some of his brethren,' and Holmes himself, in his letter to Spilsbury 
and Kiffin, gives this account : ' I came upon occasion of business. into the colony of 
Massachusetts with two other brethren.' On what ' business ' so natural as that of 
their Lord and his Church, being sent as a deputation to ' break bread ' with this 
infirm old brother, who for nearly a year had not been to the Congregational Church 
at Lynn, and could not get to his own at Newport. 

Very early in the history of the English Reformation strong ground was taken 
against 'hawking about' the Lord's Supper, as an act of superstition. Bingham, in 
harmony with all Christian antiquity, says that in the Primitive Church, the Eucha- 
rist was not offered in a corner ' for the intention or at the cost of some particular 
persons, but for a communion to the whole Church, as the primitive Church always 
used it ; and there is not an example to be found of the contrary practice.' 9 But 
so far was this custom cast aside when the Church became corrupt, that the elements 
were commonly taken to the dying. According to Limborch, in Spain, soldiers and 
a bellman attended the procession through the streets, and when the bell gave three 
strokes all the people fell on their knees, even the actors and dancers on the stage, if 
it passed a theater. 10 Many reformers, therefore, deprecated the use of the Supper 
amongst the sick and dying, as savoring of the worst superstition. None, however, 
opposed this practice more resolutely than the Baptists, because they held that the 
Church, as a body, had control of the Supper, and should partake thereof only in its 
Church capacity. 

In John Smyth's confession, (13) he says : ' The Church of Christ has power 
delegated to themselves of announcing the word, administering the sacraments,' and 
(15) that the Supper is the 'sign of the communion of the faithful amongst them- 
selves.' Article XXXII, of the Baptist Confession of 1689, takes the ground that 
it is ' to be observed in the Churches,' and is a ' pledge of their communion.' The 
Philadelphia Confession, 1 742, says (Art. XXXII) that the Supper is ' to be observed 
in the Churches,' and deprecates ' the reserving of the elements for any pretended 
religious use, as contrary to the institution of Christ.' Baptists have always held 
that the Supper is a purely Church ordinance, the whole body partaking of the 'one 
loaf,' when the Church ' has come together into one place.' They have regarded it 
as the family feast, to indicate family relationships, and hence have always kept it 
strictly under the custody of the Church, their pastors celebrating it only when and 
where the Church appoints it to be held ; the body itself determining who shall or 
shall not partake of it in the fraternity ; as it is the Lord's table, they have ever 
gathered about it as a family of the Lord. In 1641 the Boston Congregational 
Church guarded the table so closely in this respect, that ' if any member of another 



A DEPUTATION TO BREAK BREAD. 317 

Church be present, arid wishes to commune, he mentions it to one of the ruling 
elders, " who propounds his name to the congregation," who, if having no objection, 
grant him the privilege.' n Gill gives a clear statement of the Baptist position in 
this matter. He says of the place where it is to be celebrated : 

'Not in private houses, unless when the Churches are obliged to meet there in 
time of persecution ; but in the public place of worship, where and when the Church 
convened ; so the disciples at Troas came together to break bread ; and the Church at 
Corinth came together in one place to eat the Lord's Supper. Acts xx, 1 ; 1 Cor. xi, 
18-33. For this, being a Church ordinance, is not to be administered privately to 
single persons ; but to the Church in a body assembled for that purpose.' 12 

We have no reason for believing that the Church at Newport differed from the 
Baptists in general on this subject, and Clarke would scarcely so far compromise 
his Church as to celebrate the Supper in Witter's house, if his Church had not 
exercised its right to control its administration by deputing him to do so, in its name 
and as its pastor, and by sending two laymen to accompany him as ' representatives ' 
of the Church on the occasion ; ' deputed by the Church to visit an aged member,' as 
Arnold expresses himself. Such a delegated authority would give weight to the 
expression used by Holmes also, that he went to Lynn ' upon occasion of business,' and 
that of importance too, being sent on the ' King's business ' by the Church. So far as 
we have information in the case, every hint which the known facts give point in this 
direction, and justify Clarke in observing the Supper in Witter's house by the author- 
ity of the Church of which they were all members, and not on his own assumption. 

The reaction from this cruel persecution was immediate and strongly marked. i 
Thoughtful minds raised the universal inquiry : ' What evil have these men 
done ? ' Every man's conscience answered promptly : ' None at all, they have but 
obeyed God as they believed duty demanded ; many, who had not before thought 
on the subject, found their attention called to the same line of duty, and, as 
usual, many were added to the Lord. Holmes says, that so far from his bonds 
and imprisonments hindering the Gospel, ' some submitted to the Lord and were 
baptized, and divers were put upon the way of inquiry.' Upon this state of 
things his second arrest was attempted, but he escaped. Henry Dunster, the Pres- 
ident of Cambridge College (now Harvard), was so stirred in his mind, that he 
turned his attention to the subject of infant baptism, and soon rejected it altogether. 
A brief sketch of his life may be acceptable here. 

He was born in England about 1612, and was educated at Cambridge, with 
Cudworth, Milton and Jeremy Taylor. He embraced Puritan principles and came 
to Boston in 1640, four years after Cambridge College, New England, was estab- 
lished. Of course, at that time it was a mere seminary, but, being one of the most 
learned men of his times, he was put at its head. He devoted his great powers to 
its up-building, collected large sums of money for it, giving to it a hundred acres 
of land himself, and his success in furthering its interests was marvelous. After a 



318 PRESIDENT HENRY DUNSTER. 

scholarly and thorough examination of the question of baptism, he began to preach 
against infant baptism in the Church at Cambridge, 1653, to the great alarm of the 
whole community. For this crime he was indicted by the grand jury, was sen- 
tenced to a public admonition, put under bonds for better behavior, and compelled 
to i*esign his presidency, after a faithful service of fourteen years. Prince pro- 
nounced him ' one of the greatest masters of the Oriental languages that hath 
been known in these ends of the earth,' but he laid aside all his honors and positions 
in obedience to his convictions. His testimony against infant baptism was very- 
strong. When forbidden to speak, he said, according to the Middlesex Court 
records : ' The subjects of baptism were visible penitent believers and they only.' 
After protesting against the christening of a child in the congregation, he said : 

' There is an action now to be done which is not according to the institution of 
Christ. That the exposition as it had been set forth was not the mind of Christ. 
That the covenant of Abraham is not a ground of baptism, no, not after the 
institution thereof. That there were such corruptions stealing into the Church, 
which every 'faithful Christian ought to bear witness against.' 

So masterly were his arguments, that Mr. Mitchel, pastor of the Church, went 
to labor with him, and he says that Dunster's reasons were so ' hurrying and press- 
ing ' that he had ' a strange experience.' ' They were ' darted in with some 
impression, and left a strange confusion and sickliness upon my spirit.' So 
thoroughly was Mitchel shaken, that he fell back ' on Mr. Hooper's principle, 
that I would have an argument able to remove a mountain before I would recede 
from, or appear against, a truth or practice received amongst the faithful.' 13 After 
Dunster had resigned his presidency, April 7th, 1657, he was arraigned before the 
Middlesex Court for refusing to have his child baptized. But he was firm, and gave 
bonds to appear before the Court of Assistants. He removed to Scituate, in the Plym- 
outh Colony, where he maintained his manly protest. Cudworth says of him there : 

' Through mercy, we have yet amongst us the worthy Mr. Dunster, whom the 
Lord hath made boldly to bear testimony against the spirit of persecution.' 

He died February 27th, 1659, after great suffering and eminence, and in that 
magnanimous spirit which a man of holy conviction knows how to foster. Cotton 
Mather says of him, that he fell asleep 

' In such harmony of affection with the good men who had been the authors 
of his removal from Cambridge, that he by his will ordered his body to be earned 
there for its burial, and bequeathed legacies to these very persons.' 14 

There is abundant proof that, in many thoughtful minds, serious doubts had 
arisen concerning the scriptural authority of infant baptism and the right of the 
secular power to interfere in religious affairs. Dunster had done much to bring 
about this thoughtfulness, and others went further than he seems to have gone. 
It was obvious to all that the rejection of infant baptism and its enforcement by 









THE BOSTON CHURCH GATHERED. 319 

law must lead to a free Church and a free State, to the easting aside of infant 
baptism itself as a nullity, and the assertion of the rights of conscience and private 
judgment in submitting to Gospel baptism. Hence, in the very heart of the 
Puritan commonwealth, Dunster had planted seed which was indestructible. 
Cambridge and the adjoining town of Charlestown had been filled with these prin- 
ciples, and out of that center of influence came the first Baptist Church of Massa- 
chusetts Bay proper. For more than a generation Baptists had been struggling for 
a footing there, and at last it was secured. As noble a company of men as ever 
lived now banded together to withstand all the tyranny of the Puritan inquisition, 
come what might ; and no body of magistrates on earth had their hands fuller of 
work to suppress the rights of man, than had those of that colony. The struggle 
was long and hard, but the triumph of manhood was complete at last. 

The first record on the books of the First Baptist Church in Boston reads thus: 

' The 28th of the third month, 1665, in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the Church 
of Christ, commonly, though falsely, called Anabaptists, were gathered together, and 
entered into fellowship and communion with each other ; engaged to walk together 
in all the appointments of our Lord and Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, as far as he 
should be pleased to make known Ins mind and will unto them, by his word and 
Spirit, and then were baptized, Thomas Gould, Thomas Osborne, Edward Drinker, 
John George, and joined with Richard Goodall, William Turner, Pobert Lambert, 
Mary Goodall and Mary Newell, who had walked in that order in Old England, 
and to whom God hath since joined Isaac Hull, John Farnham, Jacob Barney, 
John Russell, Jr., John Johnson, George Farley, Benjamin Sweetzer, Mrs. Sweetzer, 
and Ellis Callender, all before 1669.' 

This step, however, was not taken until the heroic band had paid a great price 
for their freedom, for their vexations and sufferings ran through a course of years, 
before the final organization was effected. Justice to the memory of these blessed 
ones demands futher notice of several of them. Next after the influence of 
Dunster on the mind of Thomas Gould, of Charleston, a member of the Congrega- 
tional Church there, the Boston Church may trace its origin to the birth of a child in 
Gould's family in 1655. When this little John the Baptist of Charlestown raised 
his first cry in that home, like Zacharias of old, its godly father called his neighbors 
together to unite with him in thanks to God for the precious gift. But he with- 
held it from baptism, and was summoned to appear before the Church to answer 
therefor, when still refusing to have it baptized, he was suspended from com- 
munion, December 30th, 1656. The Middlesex Court record says that he was then 
brought before that body 'for denying infant baptism to his child, and thus put- 
ting himself and his descendants in peril of the Lord's displeasure, as in the case of 
Moses.' He was brought before the same Court with Dunster, April 7th, 1657 ; 
and, worse and worse, before the Charlestown Church, February 28th, 1664, for 
having a meeting of ' Anabaptists' in his house on the preceding 8th of Novem- 
ber. October 11th, 1665, he was before the Court of Assistants, charged with 
23 



320 GOULD AND OTHERS IMPRISONED. 

1 scliismatical rending from the communion of the Churches here, and setting up a 
public meeting in opposition to the ordinance of Christ.' Several other persons 
were tried with him for the same offense, and as they all professed ' their resolution 
yet further to proceed in such their irregular practices, thereby as well contemning 
the authority and laws here established for the maintenance of godliness and 
honesty, as continuing in the profanation of God's holy ordinances : ' Gould, 
Osborne, Drinker, Turner and George were ' disfranchised,' and threatened with 
imprisonment if they continued in this ' high presumption against the Lord and 
his holy appointments.' Zechariah Rhodes, a Rhode Island Baptist, being in Court 
at the time and hearing this decision, said publicly, that ' they had not to do in 
matters of religion,' and was committed, but afterward admonished and dismissed. 

On April 17th, 1666, Gould, Osborne and George were presented to the grand 
jury at Cambridge, for absence from the Congregational Church ' for one whole 
year.' They pleaded that they were members of a Gospel Church, and attended 
scriptural worship regularly. They were convicted of ' high presumption against the 
Lord and his holy appointments,' were fined £1 each, and put under bonds of £20 
each ; but as they would not pay their fines, they were thrown into prison. On 
the 18th of August, 1666, according to the General Court papers of Massachusetts, 
the Assistant's Court decided that Gould and Osborne might be released from 
prison if they would pay the fine and costs, but if not they should be banished ; they 
also continued the injunction against the assembling of Baptists for worship. 
March 3d, 1668, Gould was brought before the Court of Assistants in Boston, on 
an appeal from the County Court of Middlesex, when the previous judgment was 
confirmed and he was recommitted to prison. Then, on the 7th of the same 
month, concluding that fines and imprisonments did nothing to win him, and having 
a wholesome dread of repeating the Holmes's whipping experiment, the governor 
and council deciding to reduce him and his brethren ' from the error of their wav, 
and their return to the Lord, ... do judge meet to grant unto Thomas Gould, 
John Farnham, Thomas Osborne and company yet further an opportunity of a full 
and free debate of the grounds for their practice.' They also appointed Rev. 
Messrs. Allen, Cobbett, Higginson, Danforth, Mitchel and Shepard to meet with 
them on the 11th of April ' in the meeting-house at Boston at nine in the morning.' 
The Baptist and Pedobaptist brethren were then and there to publicly debate the 
following question : ' Whether it be justifiable by the word of God for these persons 
and their company to depart from the communion of these Churches, and to set up 
an assembly here in the way of Anabaptisin, and whether such a practice is to be 
allowed by the government of this jurisdiction ? ' Now, who was flouting the ' red 
flag of the Anabaptistical fanaticism full in the face of the Bay bull ? ' Gould was 
required to inform his Baptist brethren to appear, and the Baptist Church at Newport 
sent a delegation of three to help their brethren in the debate. A great concourse of 
people assembled and Mitchel took the laboring oar in behalf of the Pedobaptists, 



THOMAS OSBORNE AND EDWARD DRINKER. 321 

aided stoutly by others, but after two days' denunciation of the Baptists, they were 
not allowed to reply. The authorities, however, claimed the victory and berated 
them soundly as ' schismatics ; ' but as this did not convert them, they returned at 
once to the old argument of tine and imprisonment, notwithstanding many 
remonstrances were sent from England by such men as Drs. Goodwin and Owen, 
and Messrs. Mascall, Eye and Caryl. Mitchel gave this sentence against them, and 
that ended the matter : ' The man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken 
unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God, or unto 
the judge, even that man shall die, and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel.' 
That sentence had been pronounced in Rome a hundred times, without half the 
noise about it which these new-fledged inquisitors made. 

It may be well to add a few words in regard to Gould's companions in this 
holy war. Thomas Osborne appears to have been to Gould what Silas was to Paul. 
As far back as November 18th, 1663, the Charlestown Church records say that he, 
' being leavened with principles of Anabaptism, and his wife leavened with the 
principles of Quakerism,' that Church admonished them. But the admonition 
appears to have done no good, for July 9th, 1665, they were up before the Church 
again, with other ' Anabaptists,' on the charge that they had ' enbodied themselves in 
a pretended Church way.' Osborne refused to have his babe baptized, and his wife 
said that she could not ' conscientiously attend on ordinances with us,' and they 
were excommunicated on the 30th ' for their impenitency ; ' and on May 15th, 1675, 
he was tined because he worshiped with the Baptist Society, now in Boston. Ed- 
ward Drinker, another of these worthies, is first heard of at Charlestown, but was not 
a member of the Congregational Church there, yet the Roxbury Church records say 
that when the Baptist Church was formed, its brethren 'prophesied in turn, some; 
one administered the Lord's Supper, and that they held a lecture at Drinker's-, 
house once a fortnight.' This good man was baptized into the fellowship of the^ 
new Church, but was disfranchised by the Court when he became a Baptist, and 
was imprisoned for worshiping with his Church, 1669. He suffered much for his= 
conscience, and we find him writing to Clarke, at Newport, as late as November 
30th, 1670, in respect to the trials of the Church, which at that time had left 
Charlestown, and met at Noddle's Island, now East Boston. In this letter he tells 
Clarke that Boston and its vicinity were ' troubled,' much as Herod was at the 
coming of the King to Bethlehem, 'and especially the old Church in Boston and 
their elders. Indeed,' he adds, that many 'gentlemen and solid Christians are for 
our brother's (Turner) deliverance, but it cannot be had; a very great trouble to 
the town ; and they had gotten six magistrates' hands for his deliverance, but could 
not get the governor's hand to it. Some say one end is that they may prevent 
others coming out of England ; therefore, they would discourage them by dealing 
with us.' He then states that they had received several additions to the Church at 
Noddle's Island, that one of their elders, John Russell, lived at "Woburn, where 



322 SIGHT OF PETITION DENIED. 

already five brethren met with him, and others in that town were embracing their 
opinions. William Turner and Eobert Lambert were from Dartmouth, England, 
and were members of Mr. Stead's Church there, but became freemen in Massa- 
chusetts Bay, and were disfranchised for becoming Baptists, and when, on May 7th, 

1668, the Court demanded whether Lambert would cease attending the Baptist 
Worship, he answered that he was bound to continue in that way, and was ' ready 
to seal it with his blood;' he was sentenced to banishment, with Gould, Turner 
and Farnham. November 7th, 1669, inhabitants of Boston and Charlestown offered 
a petition to the Court in their favor, when ten persons were arrested for daring to 

•^sign this petition for mercy in their behalf. Most of them apologized for appearing 
"3;o reflect upon the Court, but Sweetzer was fined £10, and Atwater £5. March 2d, 

1669, the magistrates liberated Gould and Turner from prison, for three days, that 
they might ' apply themselves ' to the ' orthodox ' for the ' further convincement of 

'their many irregularities in those practices for which they were sentenced.' But in 
"order to enjoy this chance at ' convincement ' they must give good security to the 
"prison keepers for their return to confinement. They were imprisoned because 
they would not move away. In November, 1671, Sweetzer writes : l Brother Turner 
has been near to death, but through mercy is revived, and so has our pastor Gould. 
The persecuting spirit begins to stir again.' He afterward became a captain, and in 
:a fight with the Indians on the Connecticut Biver. May 19th 1676, being ill, he.led 
Ibis troops into battle and fell at their head. He was a devout Christian, and 
heloved greatly in Boston. 

These and other Baptists were forbidden again and again to hold any meetings, 
to which measure the General Court was moved by an address from the elders in 
convention, April 30th, 1668. They say: 'Touching the case of those that set up 
an assembly here in the way of Anabaptism,' that it belongs to the civil magistrates 
to restrain and suppress these open ' enormities in religion,' and for these reasons. 
* The way of Anabaptism is a known and irreconcilable enemy to the orthodox and 
orderly Churches of Christ.' They make ' infant baptism a nullity, and so making 
us all to be un baptized persons . . . by rejecting the true covenant of God (Gen. 
xvii, 7-14) whereby the Church is constituted and continued, and cutting off from the 
Churches half the members that belong to them. Hence, they solemnly conclude 
that ' an assembly in the way of Anabaptism would be among us as an anti- 
temple, an enemy in this habitation of the Lord ; an anti-New England in New 
England, manifestly tending to the disturbance and destruction of those Churches, 
which their nursing fathers ought not to allow. ... To set up such an as- 
sembly is to set up a free school of seduction, wherein false teachers may have 
open liberty to seduce the people into ways of error, which may not be suffered. 
At the same door may all sorts of abominations come in among us, should this be 
allowed, for a few persons may, without the consent of our ecclesiastical and civil 
order, set up a society in the name of a Church, themselves being their sole judges 
therein ; then the vilest of men and deceivers may do the like, and we have no 
fence nor bar to keep them out. Moreover, if this assembly be tolerated, where 
shall we stop ? Why may we not, by the same reason, tolerate an assembly of 
Familists, Socinians, Quakers, Papists? yea, 'tis known that all these have elsewhere 
crept in under the mask of Anabaptism.' 



MEETING-HOUSE NAILED UP. 323 

They say that 'if this one assembly be allowed, by the same reason may a 
second, third, etc. ; schools of them will soon be swarming hither. If once that 
party become numerous and prevailing, this country is undone, the work of refor- 
mation being ruined, and the good ends and enjoyments which this people have 
adventured and expended so much for, utterly lost. The people of this place have 
a clear right to the way of religion and order that is here established, and to a free-' 
dom from all that may be disturbing and destructive thereunto.' 15 

After a long contest, the infant Church which had first been organized in 
Charlestown, and then removed to Noddle's Island, ventured to remove to Boston, and 
as by stealth, Philip Squire and Ellis Callender built a small meeting-house in 1679 
•'at the foot of an open lot running down from Salem Street to the mill-pond, and 
on the north side of what is now Stillman Street.' and Thomas Gould became the 
first pastor. This building was so small, plain and unpretending, that it did not dis- 
turb the ' Bay bull ' until it was completed, and the Church entered it for worship, 
February 15th. Then that amiable animal awoke and played very violent antics, 
without the aid of Clarke's ' red flag.' In May, the General Court passed a law 
forbidding a house for public worship without the consent of the Court or a town- 
meeting, on forfeiture of the house and land. Under this post facto law the 
Baptists declined to occupy their own church edifice until the king, Charles II., 
required the authorities to allow liberty of conscience to all Protestants. Then the 
Baptists went back again, fbr which the Court arraigned them, and March 8th, 1680, 
ordered the marshal to nail up the doors, which he did, posting the following 
notice on the door : 

' All persons are to take notice that, by order of the Court, the doors of this 
house are shut up, and that they are inhibited to hold any meetings therein, or 
to open the doors thereof, without license from authority, till the Court take 
further order, as they will answer the contrary to their peril. 

' Edward Bawson, Secretary.' 

The Baptists quietly petitioned in May, asking the right to eat their own bread, 
and the Court gave them this stone, prohibiting them, ' as a society by themselves, 
or joined with others, to meet in that public place they have built, or any public 
place except such as are allowed by lawful authority.' The Baptists did not break 
open the door, but held their public Sunday services on the first Sabbath in the 
yard, and then prepared a shed for that on the second Sabbath. But when they 
came together they found the doors open ! Never stopping to ask whether the 
marshal had opened them or the angel which threw back the iron gate to Peter, they 
went in boldly and said : ' The Court had not done it legally, and that we were 
denied a copy of the constable's order and marshal's warrant, we concluded to go 
into o'ar house, it being our own, having a civil right to it.' Since that day there 
has always been a ' great door and effectual ' opened to Boston Baptists. 



CHAPTER V. 

NEW CENTERS OF BAPTIST INFLUENCE.— SOUTH CAROLINA.— 
MAINE.— PENNSYLVANIA.— NEW JERSEY. 

AS a wrathful tempest scatters seed over a continent, so persecution has 
always forced Baptists where their wisdom had not led them. The first 
American Baptist that we hear of, out of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, is in a 
letter which Humphrey Church wood, a resident of what is now Kittery, Maine, 
addressed January 3d, 1682, to the Baptist Church in Boston, of which he was a 
member. He states that there were at Kittery ' a competent number of well- 
established people, whose heart the Lord had opened, who desired to follow Christ 
and to partake of all his holy ordinances.' They asked, therefore, that a Baptist 
Church should be established there, with William Screven as pastor, who went to 
Boston and was ordained. Before he returned to Kittery, Churchwood and others 
of the little band were summoned before the magistrates and threatened with fines 
if they continued to hold meetings. A Church was organized, however, September 
25th, 1682. So bitterly did the Standing Order oppose this Baptist movement, that 
Mr. Screven and his associates resolved to seek an asylum elsewhere, and a promise 
to this effect was given to the magistrates. It is supposed that they left Kittery 
not long after the organization of the Church, but it is certain from the province 
records, that this 'Baptist Company' were at Kittery as late as October 9th, 1683; 
for under that date in the records of a Court occurs an entry from which it appears 
that Mr. Screven was brought before the Court for ' not departing this province 
according to a former confession of Court and his own choice.' 

At the Court held at Wells, May 27th, 1684, this action was taken : ' An order 
to be sent for William Screven to appear before y e General Assembly in June 
next.' As no further record in reference to Mr. Screven appears, it is probable 
that he and his company were on their way to their new home in South Carolina 
before the General Assembly met. They settled on the Cooper River, not far 
from the present city of Charleston. Some of the early colonists of South Carolina 
were Baptists from the west of England, and it is very likely that these two bands 
from New and Old England formed a new Church, as it is certain that, in 1685, both 
parties became one Church on the west bank of the Cooper River, which was 
removed to Charleston by the year 1693, and which was the first Baptist Church in 
the South. In 1699 this congregation became strong enough to erect a brick meeting- 
house and a parsonage on Church Street, upon a lot of ground which had been given 



MAINE— REV. DANIEL MERRILL. 3 23 

to the body. It is not known whether the church at Kittery was dissolved or 
whether it was transferred to South Carolina. Certainly no church organization 
is traceable there after the departure of Mr. Screven and his company. 

Nearly a century passed before we find another Baptist church within the lim- 
its of what is now the State of Maine. Then, as the result of the labors of Rev. 
Ilezekiah Smith, of Haverhill, Mass., a Baptist church was organized in Berwick 
and another in Gorham. Four years later, in Sanford, still another church was or- 
ganized. In April, 1776, William Hooper was ordained pastor of the church in 
Berwick. This was the first ordination of a Baptist minister in the District of 
Maine. In Wells, in 1780, a fourth church was organized, of which Nathaniel 
Lord was ordained pastor. All of these churches were in the south-western part of 
Maine and became connected with the New Hampshire Baptist Association. 

In 1782 Rev. Job Macomber, of Middleboro, Mass., visited the District of 
Maine. Hearing of a religious interest in Lincoln County, he made his way thither 
in December and engaged in the work. In January, 1783, he wrote a letter to 
Rev. Isaac Backus of Middleboro, in which he gave an account of his labors. This 
letter Mr. Backus read to Mr. Isaac Case, who was so impressed with the need of 
more laborers in that destitute held, that in the autumn of 1783, after having been 
ordained, he made his way into the District of Maine. He preached awhile in the 
vicinity of Brunswick and then visited Thomaston, where, May 27, 1781, as a result 
of his labors, there was organized a church, of which he became pastor. Three days 
earlier a church was organized in Bowdoinham, and Rev. Job Macomber was soon 
after called to the pastorate. January 19, 17S5, a church was organized in Harps- 
well, and Mr. James Potter, who had labored in that place with Rev. Isaac Case, 
was ordained as its pastor. May 21, 17S7, these three pastors, with delegates from 
their churches, organized the Bowdoinham Association in the house of Mr. Macom- 
ber, at Bowdoinham. Mr. Case was made moderator of the association, and Mr. 
Potter preached the first sermon. In 1789 three more churches and one ordained 
minister had been added to the association. In 1790 the number of Baj)tist churches 
in the District of Maine was 11, with about 500 members. In 1797, ten years after 
its organization, Bowdoinham Association comprised 26 churches, 17 ordained min- 
isters and 1,088 members. The Lincoln Association, embracing 18 churches, chiefly 
east of the Kennebec River, was organized in 1805. 

It was during this year that Rev. Daniel Merrill, pastor of the Congregational- 
ist church in Sedgwick, became a Baptist, together with a large number of his 
former parishioners. He was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1789, and his 
church was one of the largest in the District of Maine. He thought he would 
write a book against the Baptists, but his study of the Scriptures convinced him 
that they were right and that he was wrong. He at length called the members of 
his church together for consultation, and they asked him to give them the results 
of his investigations. He preached seven sermons on baptism, and not long after a 



326 BAPTISTS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Baptist church was organized of which Mr. Merrill became pastor. His sermons 
on baptism were published and in successive editions were extensively circulated. 
Mr. Merrill performed valuable missionary service also, and in various ways greatly 
advanced the Baptist cause in Maine. 

The Cumberland Association was organized in 1811, York Association in 1819, 
and the Eastern Maine Association in 1819. In 1826 there were in Maine 199 
churches, 126 ordained ministers, and 12,120 members. That year the Penobscot 
Association was organized. "Waldo and Oxford followed in 1829 ; Kennebec in 
1830 ; Hancock in 1835 ; Washington in 1836 ; Piscataquis in 1839 ; Saco River in 
1842 ; and Damariscotta in 1843. ISTo new associations have been formed since that 
time. There are now in Maine 247 Baptist churches, 144 ordained ministers, and 
19,871 members. 

The Baptists of Maine have at Waterville a nourishing college — Colby Univer- 
sity, with an endowment of over $550,000, and also three endowed preparatory 
schools, namely, Coburn Classical Institute, at Waterville ; Hebron Academy, at 
Hebron, and Picker Classical Institute, at Houlton. The Maine Baptist Missionary 
Convention, the Maine Baptist Education Society, and the Maine Baptist Charitable 
Society are strong and efficient organizations. 

It now fell to the lot of Rhode Island to send forth new Baptist influence into 
the then distant colony of Pennsylvania. In 1684, three years after William Penn 
obtained his charter from Charles II., Thomas Dungan, an aged and zealous 
Baptist minister, removed from Rhode Island to Cold Spring, Backs County, Pa., 
on the Delaware River, and gathered a Church there, which maintained a feeble 
life until 1702. Thomas Dungan came from Ireland to Newport, in consequence 
of the persecution of the Baptists there under Charles II., and appears to have been 
a most lovable man, whom Keach characterizes as i an ancient disciple and teacher 
amongst the Baptists.' He attracted a number of influential families around him, 
and it is believed that the father of the noted Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the 
Declaration of Independence, Avas a member of his Church at Cold Spring. 
William Penn, it is supposed, caught his liberal views from Algernon Sidney ; he 
had suffered much for Christ's sake, and had adopted quite broad views of religious 
liberty ; for at the very inception of legislation in Pennsylvania, the Assembly had 
passed the ' Great Law,' the first section of which provides that in that jurisdiction 
no person shall 

'At anytime be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious worship, 
place or ministry whatever, contrary to his or her mind, but shall freely and fully 
enjoy his or her Christian liberty in that respect, without any interruption or 
reflection ; and, if any person shall abuse or deride any other for his or her 
different persuasion and practice, in matter of religion, such shall be looked upon 
as a disturber of the peace, and be punished accordingly.' x 

This provision scarcely matched, however, the radical position of Rhode Island, 
which provided for the absolute non-interference of government in religion. Hep- 



CHURCH AT PENNEPEK. 327 

worth Dixon tells us that the first Pennsylvania Legislature, at Chester, 1682, decided 
that ' every Christian man of twenty-one years of age, unstained by crime, should 
be eligible to elect or be elected a member of the Colonial Parliament.' Here, to 
begin, was a religious test of office and even of the popular franchise, for no one bnt 
Christians could either vote for public officers or serve in the Legislature. The laws 
agreed upon in England by Penn, and the freemen who came with him, restricted 
toleration to 'all persons who confess and acknowledge the one Almighty and Eternal 
God to be the Creator, Upholder and Ruler of the world.' The Church at Cold 
Spring, located between Bristol and Trenton, was protected under these laws, but 
it seems to have died with Mr. Dungan in 1688, or rather to have lived at a dying 
rate, for in 1702 it disbanded, and Morgan Edwards, writing in 1770, says that 
nothing was left there in his day but a grave-yard bearing the names of the 
Dungans, Gardners, Woods, Doyls and others, who were members of this Church. 

In 1687 a company of Welsh and Irish Baptists crossed the Atlantic and 
settled at Lower Dublin, Pa., otherwise called Pemmepeka, Pennepek or Penny- 
pack, a word of the Delaware Indians which signifies, according to Heckewelder, a 
'pond, lake or bay ; water not having a current^ This company organized a 
Baptist Church, built a meeting-house near the water bearing this name, and sent 
forth its influence all through Pennsylvania, also into New Jersey and New York, 
Delaware and Maryland, as its pastors preached in these colonies. Its records were 
kept with care from the first, and are still preserved in a large folio. We are 
indebted to Hon. Horatio Gates Jones for the following and many other interesting 
facts. The records state : 

' By the good providence of God, there came certain persons out of Radnor- 
shire, in Wales, over into this Province of Pennsylvania, and settled in the town- 
ship of Dublin, in the County of Philadelphia, namely, John Eaton, George Eaton 
and Jane, his wife, Samuel Jones and Sarah Eaton, who had all been baptized upon 
confession of faith, and received into the communion of the Church of Christ 
meeting in the parishes of Llandewi and Nantmel, in Radnorshire, Henry Gregory 
being chief pastor. Also John Baker, who had been baptized, and a member of a 
congregation of baptized believers in Kilkenny, in Ireland, Christopher Blackwell 
pastor, was, by the providence of God, settled in the township aforesaid. In the year 
1687 there came one Samuel Vaus out of England, and settled near the aforesaid 
township and went under the denomination of a Baptist, and was so taken to be.' 
These, with Sarah Eaton, 'Joseph Ashton and Jane, his wife, William Fisher, John 
Watts ' and Rev. Elias Keach, formed the Church. Samuel Tans was chosen deacon, 
and was ' with laying on of hande ordained ' by Elias Keach, who ' was accepted and 
received for our pastor, and we sat down in communion at the Lord's table.' 

Ashton and his wife, with Fisher and Watts, had been baptized by Keach at 
Pennepek, November, 1687, and ' in the month of January, 1687-88 (O. S.), the 
Church was organized, 198 years ago, and remains to this day.' Hereby hangs a 
very interesting story concerning Keach, showing who and what he was. 

Elias Keach came to this country in 1686, a year before this Church was 
formed. He w r as the son of Benjamin Keach, of noble memory, for endurance of 



328 ELIAS REACH. 

the pillory, and for the authorship of a key to Scripture metaphors and an exposi- 
tion of all the parables. When Elias arrived in Pennsylvania, he was a wild scamp 
of nineteen, and for sport dressed like a clergyman. His name and appearance 
soon obtained invitations for him to preach, as a young divine from London. A 
crowd of people came to hear him, and concluding to brave the thing out he began 
to preach, but suddenly stopped short in his sermon. There was a stronger flutter- 
ing than he had counted on in the heart which had caught its life from its honored 
father and mother, despite the black coat and white bands under which it beat. 
He was alarmed at his own boldness, stopped short, and the little flock at Lower 
Dublin thought him seized with sudden illness. "When asked for the cause of his 
fear he burst into tears, confessed his imposture and threw himself upon the mercy 
of God for the pardon of all his sins. Immediately he made for Cold Spring to 
ask the counsel of Thomas Dungan, who took him lovingly by the hand, led him to 
Christ, and when they were both satisfied of his thorough conversion he baptized 
him ; and his Church sent the young evangelist forth to preach Jesus and the 
resurrection. Here we see how our loving God had brought a congregation of 
holy influences together from Ireland and Wales, Ehode Island and England, 
apparently for the purpose of forming the ministry of the first great pastor in our 
key -stone State. Keach made his way back to Pennepek, where he began to 
preach with great power. The four already named were baptized as the first-fruits 
of his ministry, then he organized the Church and threw himself into his Gospel 
work with consuming zeal. He traveled at large, preaching at Trenton, Philadel- 
phia, Middletown, Cohansey, Salem and many other places, and baptized his 
converts into the fellowship of the Church at Pennepek, so that all the Baptists of 
New Jersey and Pennsylvania were connected with that body, except the little 
band at Cold Spring 1 . 

Morgan Edwards tells us that twice a year, May and October, they held ' General 
Meetings' for preaching and the Lord's Supper, at Salem in the spring and at Dublin 
or Burlington in the autumn, for the accommodation of distant members and the 
spread of the Gospel, until separate Churches were formed in several places. When 
Mr. Keach was away, the Church held meetings at Pennepek, and each brother exer- 
cised what gifts he possessed, the leading speakers generally being Samuel Jones and 
John Watts. Keach married Mary, the daughter of Chief- Justice Moore, of Pennsyl- 
vania, and the Church prospered until 1689, when they must needs fall into a pious 
jangle about ' laying on of hands in the reception of members after baptism, pre- 
destination and other matters.' Soon after, Keach brought his pastoral work to a 
close in 1689, and returned to London, where he organized a Church in Ayles Street, 
Goodman's Fields, preached to great crowds of people, and in nine months baptized 
130 into its fellowship. He published several works, amongst them one on the 
'Grace of Patience,' and died in 1701, at the age of thirty-four. The Pennepek 
Church, after some contentions, built its first meeting-house in 1707, on ground pre- 



FIRST CHURCH, NEW JERSEY. 329 

sented by Rev. Samuel Jones, who became one of its early pastors ; for many 
years it was the center of denominational operations west of the Connecticut River, 
and from its labors sprang the Philadelphia Association, in 1707. It was natural 
that the several Baptist companies formed in different communities by this Church 
should soon take steps for the organization of new Churches in their several localities, 
and this was first done in New Jersey, in Middletown in 1688, Piscataqua in 1689, 
and Cohansey in 1690. 

Next to Rhode Island, New Jersey had peculiar attractions for Baptists. It 
had been ceded to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, by the Duke of York, in 
1664, and in honor of Sir George, who had held the Isle of Jersey as a Royalist 
Governor of Charles II., it was called New Jersey. 

In the ' Grants and Concessions of New Jersey,' made by Berkeley and Carteret, 
published in 1665, religious freedom was guaranteed thus: 'No person at any time 
shall be any ways molested, punished, disquieted or called in question for any dif- 
ference in opinion or practice in matters of religious concernments.' 2 The relig- 
ions freedom of Rhode Island seemed to be as broad as possible, yet, because that 
colony required all its citizens to bear arms, some Quakers were unwilling to be- 
come freemen there, but under these grants they went to New Jersey and became 
citizens. From the first, therefore, New Jersey was pre-eminent for its religious 
liberty, so that Baptists. Quakers and Scotch Covenanters became the permanent 
inhabitants of the new colony. Many of them came from Massachusetts, Connecti- 
cut, Rhode Island and New York, for the two lords' proprietors dispatched messen- 
gers to all the colonies proclaiming the liberal terms of the grants. 

Richard Stout, with five others, had settled in Middletown as early as 1648, 
and Obadiah Holmes, the confessor at Boston, had become one of the patentees 
of Monmouth County. It is certain that some of the Middletown settlers emi- 
grated from Rhode Island and Long Island as early as 1665. Amongst the 
original patentees, James Ashton, John Bowne, Richard Stout, Jonathan Holmes, 
James Grover and others were Baptists. There is some evidence that John 
Bowne was an unordained preacher, the first preacher to the new colony. 
Obadiah Holmes was one of the patentees of the Monmouth tract, 1665, owning 
house lot No. 20 and hill lot No. 6. He never lived in East Jersey, but his 
son Jonathan did from 1667-80. Obadiah Jr., was on Staten Island in 1689, 
but in 1690 he resided in Salem County, West Jersey. Jonathan was a mem- 
ber of the Assembly of East Jersey in 1668, and lived in Middletown for about 
ten years. About 1680 he returned to Rhode Island. His will, made in 1705, 
is on record at Newport, R. I., under date of November 5th, 1713, and is alsc 
recorded at Newton, N. J. He died in 1715. His sons, Obadiah and Jona- 
than, grandsons of the Boston sufferer, were members of the Middletown Baptist 
Church, and their descendants are still numerous in Monmouth County. It is 
very likely that these early Baptists had first taken refuge at Gravesend, Long 



330 CHURCH AT PISCATAQUA. 

Island, N. Y. Public worship was early observed in Middletown, and some of 
them had connected themselves with the Pennepek Church, because, after consulta- 
tion with that body, they ' settled themselves into a Church state ' in 1688. About 
1690 Elias Keach lived and preached amongst them for nearly a year. This inter- 
est prospered until the close of the century, when they fell into a quarrel, divided 
into two factions, which mutually excluded each other and silenced their pastors, 
John Bray and John Okison. After a good round fight about doctrine, as set forth 
in their Confession and Covenant, they called a council of Churches May 25th, 1711, 
which advised them to ' continue the silence imposed on the two brethren the pre- 
ceding yaar,' ' to sign a covenant relative to their future conduct,' and ' to bury 
their proceedings in oblivion and erase the record of them.' Twenty-six would not 
do this, but forty-two signed the covenant, and, as four leaves are torn out of the 
Church book, we take it that they went into the ' oblivion ' of fire. "What became 
of the twenty-six nobody seemed to care enough to tell us ; it may be lovingly 
hoped that, quarrelsome as they were, they escaped the fate of the four leaves, both 
in this world and in that which is to come. 

A most interesting Church was organized in 1689 at Piscataqua. This settle- 
ment was named after a settlement in New Hampshire (now Dover), which at that 
time was in the Province of Maine. We have seen that Hanserd Knollys preached 
there in 1638-41, and had his controversy with Larkham respecting receiving all 
into the Church (Congregational), and the baptizing of any infants offered. Al- 
though Knollys was not a Baptist at that time, his discussions on these subjects 
proved to be the seed which yielded fruit after many years. In 1648, ten years 
after he began his ministry at Dover, under date of October 18th, the authorities 
of the day were informed that the profession of ' Anabaptistry ' there by Edward 
Starbuck had excited much trouble, and they appointed Thomas Wiggin and George 
Smith to try his case. Starbuck was one of the assistants in the Congregational 
Church there, possibly the same people to whom Knollys had preached ; but the 
results of the trial, if he had one, are not given. The Colonial records of Massa- 
chusetts make the authorities say (iii, p. 173) : 

'We have heard heretofore of divers Anabaptists risen up in your jurisdiction 
and connived at. Being but few, we well hoped that it might have pleased God, 
by the endeavors of yourselves and the faithful elders with you, to have reduced 
such erring men again into the right way. But now, to our great grief, we are 
credibly informed that your patient bearing with such men hath produced another 
effect, namely, the multiplying and increasing of the same errors, and we fear may 
be of other errors also if timely care be not taken to suppress the same. Particu- 
larly we understand that within these few weeks there have been at Seckonk thir- 
teen or fourteen persons rebaptized (a swift progress in one town) ; yet we hear not 
if any effectual restriction is intended thereabouts.' 

When Knollys left, in 1641, a number of those who sympathized with his 
Baptist tendencies left with him, and when he returned to London they settled on 



CHURCH AT COHANSET. 331 

Long Island, and remained there until that territory fell under the power of English 
Episcopacy, when they removed to the vicinity of New Brunswick, N. J. There 
they formed the settlement of Piscataqua (afterward Piscataway, near Stelton) 
and organized a Baptist Church, which has exerted a powerful influence down to 
this time, being now under the pastoral care of John Wesley Sarles, D.D. The 
constituent members of this Church form an interesting study. It is certain that 
amongst the original patentees, in 1666, Hugh Dunn and John Martin were Bap- 
tists, and amongst their associates admitted in 1668 the Drakes, Dunhams, Smalleys, 
Bonhams, Fitz Randolphs, Mannings, Runyons, Stelles and others were of the same 
faith. About the lime of organizing the Baptist Church at 'New Piscataqua,' as 
they called the place, the township contained about 80 families, embodying a. popu- 
lation of about 400 persons. From the earliest information this settlement was 
popularly known as the ' Anabaptist Town,' and from 1675 downward the names of 
members of the Baptist Church are found amongst the law-makers and other public 
officials, both in the town and the colony, showing that they were prominent and 
influential citizens. Their connection with Pennepek was slight, yet some of the 
families of the old Church may have been in the new. Amongst them were John 
Drake, Hugh Dunn and Edmund Dunham, unordained ministers, who had labored 
for several years in that region as itinerants. About six years before the formation 
of the Church — 1685-90 — a company of Irish Baptists, members of a Church in 
Tipperary, had landed at Perth Amboy and made a settlement at Cohansey, some of 
whom went farther into the interior. It is quite probable that Dunn and Dunham 
were both of that company, and quite as likely that Mr. Drake was from Dover, X. H., 
where it is believed that his father had settled many years before from Devonshire, 
England. Thomas Killingsworth also was present at the organization of this 
Church, but John Drake, whose family claims kindred with Sir Francis Drake, the 
great navigator, was ordained its pastor at its constitution, and served it in that 
capacity for about fifty years. 

Another Church was established at Cohansey. The records of this Church 
for the first hundred years of its existence were burned, but, according to Asplund's 
Register, the Church was organized in 1691. Keach had baptized three persons 
there in 1688, and the Church was served for many years by Thomas Killings- 
worth, who was also a judge on the bench. He was an ordained minister from 
Norfolk, England, of much literary ability, eminent for his gravity and sound judg- 
ment, and so was deemed fit to serve as Judge of the County Court of Salem. 
About 1687 a company had come from John Myles's Church, at Swansea, near 
Providence, which for twenty-three years kept themselves as a separate Church, on 
the questions of laying on of hands, singing of psalms and predestination, until, 
with Timothy Brooks, their pastor, they united with their brethren at Cohansey. 

It was meet that before this remarkable century closed the nucleus of Baptist 
principles should be formed in the great Quaker city of Philadelphia, and this was 



332 FIRST CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA. 

done in 1696. John Farmer and his wife, from Knolly's Church in London, landed 
there in that year, and were joined in 1697 by John Todd and Eebecca Woosen- 
croft, from the Church at Leamington, England. A little congregation was held 
in Philadelphia by the preaching of Reach and Ivillingsworth and slowly increased. 
The meetings were held irregularly in a store-house on what was known as the 
' Barbadoes Lot,' at the corner of what are now called Second and Chestnut Streets, 
and formed a sort of out-station to Pennepek. In 1697 John Watts baptized four 
persons, who, with five others, amongst them John Holme, formed a Church on 
the second Sabbath in December, 1698. They continued to meet in the store-house 
till 1707, when they were compelled to leave under protest, and then they wor- 
shiped, according to Edwards, at a place 'near the draw-bridge, known by the name 
of Anthony Morris's New House.' They were not entirely independent of Pennepek 
till 1723, when they had a dispute with the Church there about certain legacies, in 
which the old Church wanted to share ; May 15th, 1746, this contest resulted in the 
formation of an entirely independent Church of fifty-six members in Philadelphia. 

This rapid review of the Baptist sentiment which had shaped into organization 
in these colonies at the close of the seventeenth century, together with a few small 
bodies in Rhode Island, besides the Churches at Providence and Newport, Swansea, 
South Carolina and New Jersey, give us the results of more than half a century's strug- 
gle for a foothold in the New World. The new century, however, opened with the 
emigration of sixteen Baptists, from the counties of Pembroke and Carmarthen, 
Wales, under the leadership of Rev. Thomas Griffith, whose coming introduced a 
new era in Pennsylvania and the region round about. They had organized them- 
selves into what Morgan Edwards calls ' a Church emigrant and sailant ' at Milford, 
June, 1701, and landed in Philadelphia in September following. They repaired 
immediately to the vicinity of Pennepek and settled there for a time. They in- 
sisted on the rite of laying on of hands as a matter of vital importance, and fell into 
sharp contention on the subject, both amongst themselves and with the Pennepek 
Church. In 1703 the greater part of them purchased lands containing about 30,000 
acres from William Penn, in Newcastle County, Delaware. This they named the 
Welsh Tract and removed thither. There they prospered greatly from year to year, 
adding to their numbers both by emigration and conversion. But they say : 

' We could not be in fellowship (at the Lord's table) with our brethren of 
Pennepek and Philadelphia, because they did not hold to the laying on of hands ; 
true, some of them believed in the ordinance, but .neither preached it up nor prac- 
ticed it, and when we moved to Welsh Tract, and left twenty-two of our members 
at Pennepek, and took some of theirs with us, the difficulty increased.' 

For about seventy years their ministers were Welshmen, some of them of emi- 
nence, and six Churches in Pennsylvania and Delaware trace their lineage to this 
Church. As early as 1736 it dismissed forty-eight members to emigrate to South 
Carolina, where they made a settlement on the Peedee River, and organized the 



REV. ABEL MORGAN. 333 

Welsh Neck Church there, which during the next century became the center from 
which thirty-eight Baptist Churches sprang, in the immediate vicinity. 

Humanly speaking, we can distinctly trace the causes of our denominational 
growth from the beginning of the century to the opening of the Revolutionary 
War. In the Churches west of the Connecticut there was an active missionary 
spirit. At first the New England Baptists partook somewhat of the conservatism 
of their Congregational brethren, but in the Churches planted chiefly by the Welsh 
in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia, the missionary 
spirit was vigorous and aggressive. As from a central fortress they sent out their 
little bauds, here a missionary and there a handful of colonists, who penetrated 
farther into the wilderness, and extended the frontiers of the denomination. Two 
men are deservedly eminent in thus diffusing our principles, namely, Abel Morgan 
and Hezekiah Smith. These are fair types of the Baptist ministry of their day, 
and their work is largely representative of the labors of many others. 

Abel Morgan was born at Welsh Tract, April 18th, 1713. To prevent confusion 
of names here, it may be well to state, that the first Welsh minister of this name 
was born in Wales in 1673, came to America and became pastor of the Pennepek 
Church in 1711, and died there in 1722. Enoch Morgan was his brother, born in 
Wales, 1676 ; he also came to this country and became pastor of the Church at 
Welsh Tract, where he died in 1740. The Abel Morgan, therefore, of whom we 
now speak was Enoch Morgan's son, named after his uncle Abel, pastor at Penne- 
pek. The subject of this sketch was one of the leading minds of his day. He was 
trained by Rev. Thomas Evans, at the Pencader Academy, and was familiar with 
the languages. He was ordained in the Welsh Tract Church, 1734, and became 
pastor of the Middletown Baptist Church, New Jersey, in 1739, which he served 
until his death, in 1785. He bequeathed his library to this Church for the use of 
his successors, and many notes in his hand are written upon the margins of the vol- 
umes in Welsh and Latin. Rev. Samuel Finley, who became President of Princeton 
College, being disturbed by the growth of the Baptists, challenged him to a dis- 
cussion. Finley wrote his 'Charitable Plea for the Speechless,' and Morgan replied 
in his ' Anti-Psedo Rantism ; or, Mr. Samuel Finley's Charitable Plea for the 
Speechless examined and refuted, the Baptism of Believers maintained, and the 
mode of it by Immersion vindicated.' This treatise was printed at Philadelphia by 
Benjamin Franklin, 1747. He had another controversy with Rev. Samuel Harker, 
a Presbyterian, of Kingswood. His work exhibits careful and thorough scholarship, 
and the appreciation of his brethren is shown by the fact that he was the first tc 
receive the honorary degree of M.A. from Brown University. In his disputation 
with Finley quite as much Welsh fire was kindled on the one side as good old Scotch 
obstinacy on the other ; and Morgan did great service in setting forth the scriptural 
and logical consistency of the Baptist position. In 1772 Abel Morgan served as 
moderator of the Philadelphia Association, James Manning >being clerk. Morgan 



334 REV. HE ZE El AH SMITH. 

had been clerk in 1762. and in 1774 it was on his motion that the Association adopted 
the use of the Circular Letter. 

But his great life-work is found in preaching the Gospel. During his pastor- 
ate of forty years, in a sparse population, his Church received fully 300 persons 
into its fellowship upon their confession of Christ. He held regular services in 
two Middletown meeting-houses, several miles apart, besides preaching often at 
Freehold, Upper Freehold, and Long Branch, making the whole of Monmouth 
County his parish. Besides this he made extensive circuits into Pennsylvania and 
Delaware, preaching the word, as a burning and shining light. 

Rev. Hezekiah Smith is another name to be had in everlasting remembrance. 
He was born on Long Island on the 21st of April, 1737 ; was baptized at the 
age of nineteen by Rev. John Gano, and in 1762 was graduated from the College 
of New Jersey, at Princeton. Immediately on graduating he set out on a horse- 
back journey through the South, preaching the Gospel for fifteen months as he 
traveled from place to place. On the 20th of September, 1763, he was publicly 
ordained at Charleston, S. C, for the work of the Christian ministry. In the spring 
of 1764, having accompanied Manning to Rhode Island, he set out on a second mis- 
sionary journey, this time to the East through Massachusetts. He arrived at Haver- 
hill, and for a time preached in a Congregational Church in the West Parish, then 
without a pastor. His piety and eloquence attracted crowds of hearers, many of 
whom were converted, and in due time he was waited upon by a committee of the 
Church with a view to permanent settlement. Under these circumstances he was 
obliged to tell them frankly that he was a Baptist, which information not only 
abruptly closed his labors in that parish, but led to his persecution on the part of 
the Standing Order. His friends, however, including some leading citizens, pressed 
him to form a Baptist Church in the center of the town. After consulting with 
his spiritual advisers in Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey, he finally con- 
sented, and the Church was constituted May 9th, 1765, and he remained its pastor 
for forty years. The memoirs of Dr. Smith, based on his journals, letters and 
addresses, have been prepared by Dr. Guild and recently published. They furnish 
a reliable history of the times in which he lived, and afford a charming insight into 
his daily life. Further reference will be made to him as a prominent chaplain in 
the army of the Revolution. 

In point of self-denying and restless labor, these two men were fair represent- 
atives of scores of Baptist ministers, North and South, who served one or two- 
Churches near their homes, but who traveled, generally on horseback, through 
woods and glades, mountains and plains, in search of lost men. They preached 
where they could, in house or barn, in forests or streets, gathering the scattered few 
in remote districts, leading them to Jesus, baptizing and organizing them into 
Churches. Generally their fame drew the people together throughout an extensive 
circle, in many instances persons coming from five and twenty to sixty miles to 



ASSOCIATIONS FORMED. 3 33 

hear them, many of them never having heard any thing that approached the warm 
and simple unfolding of the riches of Christ. Dwellers in log cabins, wooded 
mountains, the dense wilderness and the broad vales, were gathered into living 
Churches which still abide as monuments of grace. 

The formation of Associations was another element which contributed to Bap- 
tist success. At first, in many places, these began in simple annual meetings for 
religious exercises simply, but they naturally drifted into organic bodies including 
other objects as well. The Baptists were very jealous of them, fearing that they 
might trench on the independency of the Churches and come in time to exercise 
authority after the order of presbyteries, instead of confining themselves to merely 
fraternal aims. This has always been the tendency in the voluntary bodies of 
Christian history, and for this reason Associations will bear close watching at all 
times, as they are simply human in their origin. The original safeguard against 
this tendency was found in our colonial times in the fact that, except as the 
Churches met in Association for the purpose of helping each other to resist the 
oppressions of the State, they transacted no business. The cluster of Churches 
grouped around Philadelphia were strongly bound together by common interests, 
particularly as Baptist mission work extended in that part of our land. As early 
as 1688 general quarterly meetings had been held at the different Churches for mu- 
tual encouragement, but there was no representation of these Churches by dele- 
gates. In 1707 the Pennepek, Middletown, Piscataqua, Cohansey and Welsh Tract 
Churches appointed representatives and formed the Philadelphia Association. At 
that time the Philadelphia congregation was a branch of the Church at Pennepek 
(Lower Dublin) ; hence its name does not appear in the list of the Churches ; still 
the name of the largest town was chosen. The essential principles controlling this 
body were those, with some exception, that regulated the English Churches which 
met in London, September, 1689. The London body adopted thirty-two Articles 
as a Confession of Faith. An Appendix was also issued, but not as a part of the 
Articles, in which these words are used, partly in explanation of the position held 
by the English Churches on the subject of communion : 

; Divers of us who have agreed in this Confession cannot hold Church com- 
munion with any other than baptized believers, and Churches constituted of such ; 
yet some others of us have a greater liberty and freedom in our spirits that way ; 
and therefore we have purposely omitted the mention of things of that nature, that 
we might concur in giving this evidence of our agreement, both among ourselves 
and with other good Christians.' 

Dr. Ttippon gave the Minutes and Articles of the Assembly in his Pegister 

closing with 1793, but omits the Appendix, as also does Crosby, clearly not 

considering this a part of the Articles nor of equal authority with them, while 

some of the members were open communists. The Philadelphia Confession 

consists of thirty-four Articles, the twenty-third being in favor of singing in public 
24 



336 PHILADELPHIA ASSOCIATION. 

worship, and the thirty-first in favor of the laying on of hands after baptism. There 
were some other changes, but slight, and the publication of the Confession was ac- 
companied by a forceful Dissertation on Church Discipline. The Philadelphia Asso- 
ciation adopted this September 25th, 1742, and it will be of interest to say that the 
first edition was printed by Benjamin Franklin in 1743. The foregoing extract 
taken from the London Appendix is not found in the Philadelphia document, as 
all the Churches which adopted it there were strict communion in their practice ; 
hence they never accepted the London Appendix, but use these words on the 
Communion question in the XXXI, one of the new Articles : ' We believe that 
laying on of hands, with prayer, upon baptized believers as such, is an ordinance 
of Christ and ought to be submitted unto by all such persons that are admitted to 
partake of the Lord's Supper.' This Confession became the basis on which almost 
all the Associations of this country were established, until what is called the New 
Hampshire Confession was drawn up by the late Dr. John Newton Brown. 

The value of this Association to the encouragement and maintenance of new 
Churches is indicated by Morgan Edwards, who says, in 1770, that from the five 
Churches which constituted it, it had ' so increased since as to contain thirty-four 
Churches, exclusive of those which have been detached to form another Association.' 
Its Confession, as a whole, takes the doctrinal ground denominated Moderate 
Calvinism, as laid down by Andrew Fuller, carefully avoiding all extremes, 
especially that known as Hyper-Calvinism. The many subdivisions into which 
those were divided who practiced the immersion of believers, but created tests 
of fellowship not known to the Churches of the New Testament, found scant 
comfort in the unmistakable language of this Confession. The scriptural character 
of its positions, with the freedom of thought which it left to the Churches on matters 
not comprised in its Articles, armed it with a powerful moral influence against heter- 
odoxy, and yet left that free scope for the exercise of conscience without which 
Baptists cannot exist. A like service was rendered by its Treatise of Discipline, 
which aided the Churches in administering their practices, with such variations as 
their circumstances of time and place dictated ; and, without that crippling effect 
which Komanism has sometimes assumed in Baptist Churches under the monstrous 
guise of Baptist usage, which, in other words, simply meant Baptist tradition. 

The establishment of this Association formed a great epoch in Baptist history, 
because it fostered those educational and philanthropic causes which needed the 
co-operation of the sisterhood of Churches, and could not be sustained by purely 
separate congregations. When Isaac Eaton had it upon his heart to raise an 
academy in connection with his Church at Hopewell, N. J., the Philadelphia Asso- 
ciation passed the following resolution, October 5th, 1756 : ' Concluded to raise a 
sum of money toward the encouragement of a Latin Grammar School, for the 
promotion of learning amongst us, under the care of Rev. Isaac Eaton, and the 
inspection of our brethren, Abel Morgan, Isaac Stelle, Abel Griffith and Peter P. 



HOPEWELL GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 337 

Van Horn.' It is said that the first student at this academy was James Manning, 
afterward President of Brown University. Samuel Jones and Hezekiak Smith 
were also amongst the early students, as well as Samuel Stillman, John Gano, 
Charles Thompson, Judge Howell, Benjamin Stelle, and many others of note, both 
in Church and State. So many of the Churches were supplied with able pastors 
from this seminary that the Baptists were moved to establish a college, and the 
result of their effort was the founding of that noted seat of learning now known 
as Brown University. In a sense, the Philadelphia, aided by the Charleston and 
Warren Associations, gave birth to all the Baptist institutions of learning in 
America by nursing the enterprise at Hopewell. The encouragement and assist- 
ance which persecuted Baptists received in other States from these Associations 
in relation to religious freedom was very great. We have seen that the Philadel- 
phia Association was formed in 1707; then followed the Charleston, S. C, in 1751 ; 
the Kehukee, N. C, in 1765 ; and the Warren, P. I., in 1767. When the Warren 
Association was formed, there were, according to Backus, fifty-five Baptist 
Churches in Jfew England, but according to Morgan Edwards there were seventy. 
Some of them observed the Sabbath on the seventh day, some were frankly 
Arminian in doctrine, and a majority of them maintained the imposition of hands 
upon the immersed as a divine ordinance. 

As early as 1729 the General or Arminian Baptists formed an Association at 
Newport, P. L, and in 1730 thirteen Churches of that colony and Connecticut held 
yearly meetings upon the Six Principles. The associational idea was thus early at 
work, but the Warren Association did not grow out of this previous organization. 
Nor was it related to the quarterly and yearly meetings, as was the Philadelphia 
bod} r , the Churches which formed it each working on their own lines for a long 
time. The idea of an association between the Calvinistic Baptist Churches of New- 
England probably originated with Dr. Manning. The growth of our Churches in-, 
Massachusetts and the founding of Brown University were so interblended in the 
formation of the Warren Association that it will be necessary to look at both in 
connection with that important movement. 

As far back as 1656 the magistrates of Connecticut asked those of Massachu- 
setts some questions concerning infant baptism. June 4th, 1657, a meeting of 
ministers was held in Boston, who adopted what is known as the Half-way 
Covenant, which provided ' that all persons of sober life and correct sentiments, 
without being examined as to a change of heart, might profess religion or become 
members of the Church, and have their children baptized, though they did not 
come to the Lord's table.' A synod of all the ministers in Massachusetts ratified 
this provision in the same year. It will be readily seen that such an unscriptura) 
step opened the doors of the Congregational Churches to an immense influx of 
unconverted people and to a corresponding worldliness of life. The Baptists were 
obliged, almost single-handed, to stem this public sentiment, but they bravely stood 



1338 PERSECUTION IN MASSACHUSETTS RELAXED. 

firm for Gospel principles. The Churches increased in number and influence 
continually, and in a large measure they counteracted these dangerous influences 
upon the public mind. The Baptist Church in Boston built a new church edifice 
in 1680, and in 1683 John Emblem from England became their pastor; after 
serving them for fifteen years, he died in 1699, when Ellis Callender succeeded him. 
He was followed by Elisha Callender and Jeremiah Condy, until Samuel Stillman 
took charge in 1765. By the time that the second Callender became pastor, the 
spirituality of the Baptists had so commended them to the respect of the better 
portion of the community that the three principal clergymen in Boston, Increase 
Mather, Cotton Mather and John Webb, not only consented to be present at his 
■ordination, but Mr. Mather most cheerfully preached the ordination sermon, May 
21st, 1718. And what was as noble as it was remarkable, he had the manliness 
to select as his subject, ' Good Men United ! ' In the face of the whole colony he 
'condemned 'the wretched notion of wholesale severities.' These he called 'cruel 
'wrath,' and said roundly : ' New England also has, in some former times, done some- 
thing of this aspect, which would not now be so well approved of, in which, if the 
brethren in whose house we are now convened met with any thing too unbrotherly, 
they now with satisfaction hear us expressing our dislike of every thing that has 
looked like persecution in the days that have passed over us. 1 3 

In 1729 the bitterness of the General Court of Massachusetts was so far relaxed 
against Baptists as to exempt them from paying the parish ministerial taxes if they 
alleged a scruple of conscience in the matter. 4 This, however, by no means ended 
their sufferings, for in 1753 the Court required the minister and two principal 
members of a Baptist Church to sign a certificate that the person to be exempt was 
a member of that Church, and besides, the Church of which he was a member 
should obtain a certificate from three other Baptist Churches to prove that the 
Church to which he belonged really was a Baptist Church. Of course, our 
Churches resisted this provision and, in 1754, remonstrated with the Assembly at 
Boston. At once it was moved in this body, but not carried, that the signers of the 
remonstrance should be taken into custody. In the paper which they had sent to 
the Assembly they had shown how the Baptists had been thrown into jail, their 
cattle and goods sold at auction for a quarter of their value because they refused 
to pay Church rates, and they held that all this was contrary to the royal charter, 
which granted them liberty of conscience. Manning wrote to Dr. Samuel Stennett, 
June 5th, 1771, of his brethren's hard treatment in Massachusetts by imprisonment 
and the despoiling of their property. He says of the authorities : 

' They are afraid if they relax the secular arm their tenets have not merit 
enough and a sufficient foundation to stand. This has been so plainly hinted by 
some of the committees of the General Court, upon treating with our people, that 
I think it cannot be deemed a breach of charity to think this of them. . . . Some 
of our Churches are sorely oppressed on account of religion. Their enemies con- 
tinue to triumph over them, and as repeated applications have been made to the 



DR. STENNETT AND GEORGE III. 339 

Court of Justice and to the General Courts for the redress of such grievances, but as 
yet have been neglected, it is now become necessary to carry the affair to England, 
in order to lay it before the king.' 

Dr. Stennett was known personally to George III., who greatly respected him ; 
hence he used his influence with the king, in company with Dr. Llewelyn and Mr. 
Wallin, to secure relief. On July 31st, 1771, his majesty 'disallowed and rejected' 
the act of Massachusetts in oppressing the Baptists at Ashfield ; and Dr. John Ey- 
land, in writing to Manning, says that Dr. Stennett procured that order. Three 
hundred and ninety-eight acres of land, belonging in part to Dr. Ebenezer Smith, a 
Baptist minister, and the Ashfield Baptists, had been seized and sold to build a 
Congregational meeting-house. On this land was a dwelling-house and orchard, 
and also a burying-ground, so that the Baptists found their dead taken from them as 
well as their property. The Warren Association met at Medfield, Sept. 7th, 1772, 
and refused to carry in any more certificates for exemption from ministerial taxes, 
because to do so implied a right on the part of the State to levy such a tax, and 
because it was destructive to religious liberty and the proper conduct of civil 
society. They demanded the right to stand on an equality before the law, not as a 
sect, but as citizens. Meanwhile the Baptist Churches fast multiplied everywhere. 
A second Baptist Church was formed in Boston itself in 1743, and others fol~ 
lowed at various places and dates, as Middleborough, Newton, etc. ; so that by 1776 
there were about forty Baptist Churches in Massachusetts alone. Their cause in 
New England received a strong impetus from the preaching of Whitefield and his 
eolaborers, which ushered in the great awakening. While Whiteheld was not a Bap- 
tist, he insisted on a spiritual Church and that none but those who had experienced 
the new birth should become members therein, a position which logically carried 
men to the Baptists in a community where the Half-way Covenant was in force. 
He landed at Newport in September, 1740, and for three months preached daily. 
Tennant, Bellamy, Wheelock, Davenport, and many others followed him, and it is 
estimated that within two years between thirty and forty thousand persons pro- 
fessed conversion to Christ. Many Churches of the Standing Order arrayed 
themselves against him ; others were indifferent to his movements. Harvard and 
Tale Colleges officially took ground against him. Dr. Chauncey, of Boston, wrote 
a volume against him ; and the General Court of Connecticut enacted laws restrict- 
ing ministers to their own pulpits, unless specially invited by the minister of 
another parish, and making it illegal for any unsettled minister to preach at all. 

It was not strange that these converts, finding such opposition or cold welcome 
in the Congregational Churches, should seek homes elsewhere. In many cases they 
formed Churches of their own and were known as Separatists, and Backus says that 
between September, 1746, and May, 1751, thirty-one persons were ordained as pastors 
of Separate Churches. These new converts were insensibly and inevitably led 
nearer to the Baptist position than to that taken by the great body of the Congre- 



340 WHITEFIELD AND THE SEPARATISTS. 

gational State Churches. The Churches of the Standing Order were filled with 
unconverted persons, with many who had grown up in them from infancy, being 
introduced at that time by christening ; and but a small proportion of their mem- 
bers made any claim to a spiritual regeneration. The intuitions of a converted soul 
recoil from Church associations with those whose only claim to membership in 
Christ's mystical body is a ceremony performed over an unconscious infant, for the 
renewed man seeks fellowship with those who, like himself, have exercised faith in 
Christ's saving merits, and he is likely to take the Scriptures for his guide in seek- 
ing his Church home. "Whitefield himself taught his converts, when preaching on 
Rom. vi, 1-4, that their death to sin enjoined another order of duty. He says : ' It 
is certain that in the words of our text there is an allusion to the manner of baptism, 
which was by immersion, which our Church [Episcopal] allows, and insists upon it, 
that children should be immersed in water, unless those that bring the children to 
be baptized assure the minister that they cannot hear the plunging.' 6 In these and 
similar words he showed his hearers that the New Testament disciples were a body 
of immersed believers ; and when Jonathan Edwards repudiated the Half-way Cov- 
enant, numbers embraced his views ; some few new Baptist Churches were formed 
in Massachusetts, but many Whitefieldians and Baptists attempted to build together 
in what were popularly known as New Light or Separatist Churches. Of 
course such a compromise between Baptist and Pedobaptist principles could not 
long be practiced, and gradually the Baptists withdrew to form their own congre- 
gations. Backus says that for the twenty years between 1760 and 1780 two new 
Baptist Churches were organized each year. 

The life and ministry of Isaac Backus himself illustrates the sweep of the 
Baptist movement in New England. He was converted to God during this great 
awakening, and with many misgivings united with the Congregational Church at 
Norwich, Conn., but afterward joined with fifteen others in forming a Separate 
Church, composed of Baptists and Pedobaptists. Two years afterward, 1748, hav- 
ing now reached the age of twenty-six years, he formed a Church of this mixed order 
at Middleborough, Mass. Soon the question of baptism began to agitate the body, 
and a number of his people rejected infant baptism and sprinkling as baptism. 
After a time Mr. Backus followed them on conviction, and in 1756 he formed the 
First Baptist Church at Middleborough. The story of his change of faith and 
denominational relations is a type of the inward and outward changes through 
which many earnest men passed at that time, and united with the Baptists or 
formed new Churches of that order and Backus acted as a leader in this direction. 

We have seen that James Manning was first a student at Hopewell ; after 
spending four years at the College of New Jersey, at Princeton, from which he was 
graduated in 1762 with the second highest honors of his class, he was intrusted by 
the Philadelphia Association with the arduous task of establishing a denominational 
college ' on some suitable part of this continent.' After consulting largely with 



DR. JAMES MANNING. 341 

friends, amongst them Gardner, the Deputy-Governor of Rhode Island, he estab- 
lished a Latin School at "Warren, and organized a Baptist Church there in 1761. 
This school was subsequently removed to Providence, where it is still continued as 
the University Grammar School. In 1765 he was appointed ' President of the 
( 'ollege of Rhode Island, and Professor of Languages and other branches of learning, 
with full power to act in these capacities at Warren and elsewhere.' He began his 
work with one student, William Rogers, from Newport ; three others were added 
within a year, and at the first commencement, in 1769, he graduated seven. A college 
charter was obtained from the General Assembly of Rhode Island, and $2,000 were 
subscribed for building and endowing the college. He saw at once that his success 
depended on the interest which the Churches took in the institution, and seeing that 
this could only be accomplished by united effort, he and Hezekiah Smith determined 
on forming an Association, with the double purpose of resisting the oppressions of 
the Standing Order in New England and of securing an educated Baptist ministry. 
This was accomplished at Warren in 1767. For six years the college remained at 
Warren, when a contest arose between Warren, East Greenwich, Newport and 
Providence for the honor of the permanent location, and in 1770 the college was 
removed to Providence. Manning then resigned his pastorship at Warren, accepted 
that of the Providence Church in 1771, and for twenty years held the twofold 
relation of pastor and president. The Warren Association was intimately identified 
with the development of the college for many years, thus making them mutual 
blessings. Backus tells us that a number of elders being together in consultation 
about the affairs of the young institution, they sent invitations to other brethren, 
and the result was the meeting at Warren of representatives from eleven Churches, 
with three ministers from the Philadelphia Association for consultation concerning 
the organization of the new Association. John Gano was pastor of the Baptist 
Church in New York at that time, and brother-in-law of President Manning. Gano 
presided over their delegations, and Isaac Backus acted as clerk. After full deliber- 
ation, some of the Churches, fearing that an Association might assume jurisdiction 
over them, faltered, and that body was formed by the representatives of four 
Churches only, namely, Warren, Bellingham, Haverhill and Second Middleborough, 
but the latter Church withdrew at the second meeting, 1768. 

President Manning then drew up a statement closely defining the objects of 
the Warren Association, adapted to remove misapprehensions, and in 1770 the Mid- 
dleborough Church, with Backus as pastor, returned, ' upon the express condition 
that no complaint should ever be received by the Association against any particular 
Church that was not of the Association, nor from any censured member of any of 
our Churches.' This body of Churches defined that its union was ' consistent with 
independency and power of particular Churches, because it pretended to be no other 
than an advisory council, utterly disclaiming superiority, jurisdiction, coercive right 
and infallibility.' On these principles the Association won its way, and in 1777 



342 THE WARREN ASSOCIATION. 

it embraced in its membership 31 churches and 1,617 communicants. The 
service which it rendered to Baptist interests in those days of weakness and trial 
was very great, for it was a missionary society as well as a fraternal body. It 
organized an Educational Fund for ministerial education; it appointed a committee 
to present serious Baptist grievances to the government of Massachusetts and Con~ 
necticut ; it sent an agent to England to lay their case before the king ; and it 
appealed for subscriptions to all the Baptist Churches of this continent, admonishing 
them to rally to the support of their own college as a Christian duty. Also it 
appointed Benjamin Foster and others to prepare a spelling-book, a good English 
grammar and a Baptist catechism. Foster was a graduate of Yale, was appointed 
to defend the Pedobaptist position in the exercises of that college, and became a 
Baptist on conviction as the result. The hallowed influences exerted by the Phila- 
delphia and Warren Associations in molding the Baptist denomination in the ISTew 
World can never be told. 

Justice, however, demands as high a tribute to Morgan Edwards as to James 
Manning, for his zeal and ability in establishing the college. Indeed, Dr. Guild, 
the present librarian of Brown University, frankly pays him this tribute. He says 
of Morgan : 

'He was the prime mover in the enterprise of establishing the. college, 
and in 1767 he went back to England and secured the first funds for its endow- 
ment. With him were associated the Rev. Samuel Jones, to whom in 1791 was 
offered the presidency ; Oliver Hart and Francis Pelot, of South Carolina ; John 
Hart, of Hopewell, the signer of the Declaration of Independence ; John Stites, the 
mayor of Elizabethtown ; Hezekiah Smith, Samuel Stillman, John Gano and others 
connected with the two Associations named, of kindred zeal and spirit. The final 
success of the movement, however, may justly be ascribed to the life-long labors of 
him who was appointed the first president, James Manning, D.D., of New Jersey.' 6 

It is right to say here that he, being a Welshman, it was meet that he should be 
the ' prime mover ' in establishing the first Baptist college in America on the very 
soil where Roger Williams, his countryman, had planted the first free republic of 
this land. There is also very much poetic lore in the thought that he should 
leave his Church in Philadelphia to enlist the men of Wales in the interests of 
the young institution. He brought back a large sum of money for this object, and 
had so stirred the sympathies of Dr. Richards, of South Wales, that he bequeathed 
his library of 1,300 volumes to its use. And now, probably, there is not such a 
collection of Welsh books in America as is found in the town of the brave 
Welshman who founded Providence. Welsh affection for Brown merits that 'po- 
etic justice ' which led its present librarian to bless the memory of the other 
immortal Welshman, Morgan Edwards, as the prime mover in its establishment. Mr. 
Edwards was thoroughly educated and became pastor of the Philadelphia Church, 
on the recommendation of Dr. Gill, in 1761, and remained there till 1771, when he 
removed to Delaware, where he died in 1795. His influence was very great, but 



REV. MORGAN EDWARDS. 343 

would have been much enlarged had he identified himself with the cause of the 
colonies in their struggle with the mother country. His family was identified with 
the service of his majesty of England, and Morgan was so full of Welsh fire that 
he could not hold his tongue, which much afflicted his brethren and involved him 
in trouble with the American authorities, as we find in the following recantation : 
' At a meeting of the Committee of White Clay Creek, at Mr. Henry Darby's, in 
New York, August 7th, 1775, William Patterson, Esq., being in the chair, when the 
Rev. Morgan Edwards attended and signed the following recantation, which was 
voted satisfactory, namely : 

' Whereas, I have some time since frequently made use of rash and imprudent 
expressions with respect to the conduct of my fellow-countrymen, who are now en- 
gaged in a noble and patriotic struggle for the liberties of America, against the 
arbitrary measures of the British ministry ; which conduct has justly raised their 
resentment against me, I now confess that I have spoken wrong, for which I am 
sorry and ask forgiveness of the public. And I do promise that for the future I 
will conduct myself in such a manner as to avoid giving offense, and at the same 
time, in justice to myself, declare that I am a friend to the present measures pur- 
sued by the friends to American liberty, and do hereby approve of them, and, as 
far as in my power, will endeavor to promote them. Morgan Edwards.' 

How sound his conversion was to Revolutionary 'measures' is not a proper 
question to raise here, but as the offense was one of the tongue, he made the 
amend as broad as the sin, and there is no known evidence that he ever gave too 
free rein to the unruly member thereafter on the subject of the ' noble and pat- 
riotic struggles for the liberties of America.' It is sure, however, that when 
American liberties were secured he brought forth abundant fruits, ' meet for 
repentance,' in the labors which he devoted to the cause of American education. 
He also traveled many thousands of miles on horseback to collect materials for the 
history of the Baptist Churches in the colonies which he had done so much to build 
up. His purpose was to publish a history in about twelve volumes. He issued 
the first volume in 1770, which treated of the Pennsylvania Baptists ; the second 
volume related to the New Jersey Baptists and was published in 1792 ; his treat- 
ment of the Rhode Island Baptists was not sent forth by him, but appeared in the 
sixth volume of the Rhode Island Historical Collections of 1867. He left the 
third volume in manuscript, concerning the Delaware Baptists, which is now in 
possession of the Baptist Historical Society, Philadelphia. He was as noble, refined 
and scholarly a servant of Christ as could be found in the colonies. He died in Del- 
aware in 1795 ; his body, which was first buried in the Baptist meeting-house, La 
Grange Place, between Market and Arch Streets, Philadelphia, now rests in Mount 
Moriah Cemetery, and every true American Baptist blesses his memory. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

NO chapter of Baptist history, European or American, fills honest hearts with 
warmer gratitude and thanksgiving than that of Virginia. The first 
settlers of this colony were cavaliers, from the upper classes of English society, pro- 
foundly loyal to the English government and zealous of religious observances. The 
Virginian charter of April 10th, 1606, made the Church of England the religion of 
the colony, and devotion to the king, its head and defender, the test of loyalty ; hence 
all were taxed for its support. Before Plymouth Rock was known, and nearly a 
quarter of a century before Massachusetts Bay Colony was organized, the soil of 
Virginia was hallowed by praise to God in public worship. Captain John Smith 
tells us this beautiful story of his religious acts at Jamestown : 

'When I first went to Virginia, I well remember we did hang an awning, 
which is an old sail, to three or four trees to shadow us from the sun. Our walls 
were rails of wood, our seats unhewed trees, till we cut planks, our pulpit a bar of 
wood nailed to two neighboring trees. In foul weather we shifted into an old 
rotten tent. This was our church, till we built a homely thing like a barn, set up 
crotchets, covered with rafts, sedge and earth, so was also the walls, the best of our 
houses of the like curiosity, but the most part far much worse workmanship, that 
could neither well defend wind or rain. Yet we had daily common prayer, morn- 
ing and evening ; every Sunday two sermons, and every three months the Holy Com- 
munion, till our minister, Mr. Hunt, died. But our prayers daily, with a homily on 
Sunday, we continued two or three years after, till more preachers came. And 
surely God did most mercifully hear us, till the contimial inundations of mistaken 
directions, factions and numbers of unprovided libertines, near consumed us all, as 
the Israelites in the wilderness.' 

Happy had it been for the colonists if this freedom and simplicity of volun- 
tary worship had been continued amongst them, as this noble character commenced 
it in his rude Jamestown temple, without doubt the first ever erected in North 
America. The charter made withdrawal from the Episcopal Church a crime equal 
to revolt from the government. It further required that if any one were drawn 
away from the ' doctrines, rites and religion, now professed and established within 
our realm of England,' the person so offending should be ' arrested and imprisoned, 
until he shall fully and thoroughly reform him, or otherwise when the cause so 
requireth, that he shall with all convenient speed be sent into our realm of England, 
here to receive condign punishment, for his or their said offense.' 

Each successive Governor promulgated his own code of laws, directing his 



EARLY AND OPPRESSIVE LAWS. 345 

subordinates in the details of administration. That of Sir Thomas Dale, in 1611, 
provided that every man or woman, 'now present or hereafter to arrive,' should 
give ' an account of his or their faith and religion, and repair unto the minister,' 
that their orthodoxy might be tested. Upon refusal to do this the minister should 
give notice to the Governor or chief officers of the town, and for the first refusal 
the offender was to be whipped, for the second to be whipped twice and to 
acknowledge his fault on the Sabbath day in the congregation, and for the third 
offense he was to be whipped every day until the acknowledgment was made and 
forgiveness craved. The very severity of this code prevented its full execution, 
and succeeding Governors relaxed these provisions in their several codes. But 
though corporal punishment was gradually abandoned, the spirit of intolerance as 
to any departure from the Church of England remained the same, being quite as 
severe as that of Massachusetts Bay against all dissent from Congregationalism. 
Hening says that the General Assembly appears to have devoted itself to enforcing 
attendance on the services of the Church of England in the colony. In 1623 it 
provided that public worship should be held in every plantation according to its 
canons, that its ministers should be paid by a tax upon the people, and that no other 
ministers but those of that Church ' shall be permitted to preach or teach, publicly 
or privately,' and that 'the Governor and Council shall take care that all Non- 
conformists depart the colony with all conveniency.' 

The first nine Acts of 1661 provided for the support of the State Church; in 
each parish a church edifice was to be built out of the public treasury, together with 
a parsonage house and the purchase of a glebe for the minister's use. He was to 
receive a salary of £80 sterling, a provision subsequently changed to 16,000 pounds 
of tobacco, to be levied on the parish and collected like other taxes. Each min- 
ister must be ordained by a Bishop in England ; all other preachers were to be 
banished ; every person who wilfully avoided attendance on the parish Church for 
one Sunday was to be fined fifty pounds of tobacco ; every Non-conformist was to be 
fined £20 for a month's absence, and if he failed to attend for a year he must be 
apprehended and give security for his good behavior, or remain in prison till he 
was willing to attend Church. Much pretense has been made, that because the 
early settlers of the colony were cavaliers, they were less austere, more polished 
and of gentler blood than the Puritans of Massachusetts. But the brutal intoler- 
ance of the English Court was faithfully copied by them, and no darker or more 
bloody pages stain English or Massachusetts history than those that defile the early 
records of Virginia. White tells us of a band of men who were driven from 
Virginia ' for their religious opinions' in 1634. 1 Burk records the revolting bar- 
barities inflicted on Stevenson Reek for the same cause in 1640. He ' stood in the 
pillory two hours with a label on his back, paid a fine of £50, and was imprisoned 
at the pleasure of the Governor,' for simply saying, in a jocular manner, that ' his 
majesty was at confession with my lord of Canterbury.' 2 Holmes details, at length, 



340 QUAKERS PUNISHED. 

that in 1648 'four missionaries were sent from Massachusetts to Virginia, Messrs. 
James, Knollys, Thompson and Harrison. They held a few meetings there in 
private, but their little congregations were violently broken up and the missionaries 
banished, while many of their hearers were imprisoned. 3 James Pyland, a member 
of the House of Burgesses from the Isle of Wight County, prepared a Catechism 
which was pronounced ' blasphemous,' for which he was expelled in 1652 ; and for 
some other trivial religious offense a member from Norfolk was expelled in 1663. 
Virginia had adhered to the king against Cromwell and the Commonwealth, and 
Dr. Hawks, the eloquent Episcopal historian of Virginia, tells of four of Cromwell's 
soldiers who were ' rudely hung, as a warning to the remainder ' in 1680, for their 
religious opinions, under the pretense that ' their assemblages ' were ' perverted 
from religious to treasonable purposes ; ' those religious assemblages themselves 
being regarded as a subversion of the government. 4 

Hening states that the 111th Act of the Grand Assembly of 1661-62 declared 
that, Whereas, Many schismatical persons, out of their averseness to the orthodox 
established religion, or out of the new-fangled conceits of their own heretical inven- 
tions, refuse to have their children baptized ; Be it therefore enacted, by the 
authority aforesaid, that all persons that in contempt of the divine sacrament of 
baptism, shall refuse when they may carry their child to a lawful minister in that 
county, to have them baptized, shall be amersed two thousand pounds of tobacco ; 
half to the informer, half to the public.' 5 

This was a blow dealt at the Quakers, as there seem to have been no Baptists 
in the colony at that time. Several Acts of the Assembly in 1659, 1662 and 1693 
made it a crime for parents to refuse the baptism of their children. Jefferson 
writes : ' If no execution took place here, as in New England, it was not owing to 
the moderation of the Church or the spirit of the Legislature, as may be inferred 
from the law itself, but to historical circumstances which have not been handed 
down to us.' 6 

When William and Mary came to the throne, in 1689, their accession was 
signalized by that enactment of Parliament called the Act of Toleration. Even 
this, as Dr. Woolsey remarks, 'removed only the harshest restrictions upon 
Protestant religious worship, and was arbitrary, unequal and unsystematic in its pro- 
visions.' Still, it was the entering wedge to religious freedom, and while the 
Baptists of England gladly availed themselves of it and organized under it in 
London as a great Association for new work, a hundred and seventeen Churches 
bein 0, represented, the authorities of Virginia thought it inoperative in their colony. 
It was not until a score of years after the passage of this Act that the colonial 
Legislature gave to the colonists the meager liberties which it granted to the British 
subject. When, however, news of this Act reached Virginia, the few individual 
Baptists then scattered abroad there resolved on their full liberty as British subjects 
under its provisions. They entreated the London Meeting to send them ministers, 
an entreaty which was followed by a correspondence running through many years. 



FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH IN VIRGINIA. 347 

In 1714 Robert Nordin and Thomas White were sent as ordained ministers to the 
colony, but White died upon the voyage. Up to this time there seems to have 
been no organized body of Baptists in Virginia, although there are traces of indi- 
viduals in North Carolina as early as 1696, who had fled from Virginia to escape 
her intolerance. Semple finds the first Baptist Church of Virginia organized in 
association with the labors of Nordin at Burleigh, Isle of Wight County, in 1714, on 
the south side of the river and opposite Jamestown. Howell thinks that before 
the coming of Nordin there had been a gathering of citizens there, joined by others 
from Surry County for consultation, and that they had petitioned the London Bap- 
tists to send them help. Be this as it may, Nordin was soon followed by two other 
ministers, Messrs. Jones and Mintz, and under the labors of these men of God the 
first Church was formed in that year, and soon after one at Brandon, in the County 
of Surry. The first is now known as Mill Swamp ; it is thought that the Otterdams 
Church is the second. These were General Baptists, but in a few years they embraced 
Calvinistic sentiments, and Nordin labored in that region till he died, in 1725. 

While this movement was in progress in the southern part of Virginia, the 
influence of the Welsh Baptists, in Pennsylvania and Delaware, began to be felt in 
Berkeley, Loudon and Rockingham Counties, which were visited by their minis- 
ters. Semple thinks that these laborers first reached the colony through Edward 
Hays and Thomas Yates, members of the Saters Baptist Church, in Maryland, 
and that Revs. Loveall, Heaton and Gerard soon followed them. Churches were 
then gathered at Opecon, Mill Creek, Ketocton and other points in rapid suc- 
cession, which became members of the Philadelphia Association, from which 
they received the counsel and aid of David Thomas, John Gano and James Miller, 
which accounts in part for the rapid spread of Baptist principles in North Vir- 
ginia. They were soon strengthened, also, by the labors of two men of great 
power, formerly of other denominations, who became Baptists. Shubael Stearns, a 
native of Boston, Mass., was converted under the preaching of George Whitefield, 
and united himself with the revival party of the Congregationalists, called New 
Lights, in 1745. He continued with them for six years, when he became convinced, 
from an examination of the Scriptures, that infant baptism was a human institu- 
tion and that it was his duty to confess Christ on his faith. Accordingly, he was 
immersed by Elder Palmer at Tolland, Conn., May 20th, 1751, and was ordained a 
Baptist minister. After continuing in New England for about three years, he 
longed to carry the Gospel to the regions beyond, and made for Berkeley and Hamp- 
shire Counties, Va. There God made him wonderfully successful, and his fame 
spread through all the region. He itinerated largely in North Carolina as well as in 
Virginia, and gathered an immense harvest for Christ. Morgan Edwards describes 
him as a marvelous preacher for moving the emotions and melting his audiences 
to tears. The most exciting stories are told about the piercing glance of his eye 
and the melting tones of his voice, while his appearance was that of a patriarch. 



348 EARLY VIRGINIAN PREACHERS. 

Tidence Lane, who afterward became a distinguished Baptist minister, says that he 
had the most hateful feelings toward the Baptists, but curiosity led him to hear 
Mr. Stearns : 

' Upon my arrival, I saw a venerable old man sitting under a peach-tree, with a 
book in his hand and the people gathering about him. He fixed his eyes upon me 
immediately, which made me feel in such a manner as I never had felt before. I 
turned to quit the place, but could not proceed far. I walked about, sometimes 
catching his eyes as I walked. My uneasiness increased and became intolerable. I 
went up to him, thinking that a salutation and shaking of hands would relieve me ; 
but it happened otherwise. I began to think that he had an evil eye and onght to 
be shunned ; but shunning him I could no more effect than a bird can shun the rat- 
tlesnake when it fixes its eyes upon it. When he began to preach my perturbations 
increased, so that nature could no longer support them and I sank to the ground.' 

Rev. Daniel Marshall was brother-in-law to Stearns, and had formerly been a 
Presbyterian minister at Windsor, Conn., but had served for some yeai*s as a mis- 
sionary to the Indians on the upper Susquehanna. War between the colony of 
Maryland and the Indians had arrested his work, and on examining the Scriptures, 
he, too, became a Baptist, being immersed near Winchester, Va., in the forty-eighth 
year of his age. He and Stearns preached in Virginia, North and South Carolina, 
and Churches were multiplied in every direction. Dr. Howell, in treating of this 
period, says that 

' The fields were white to harvest. God poured out his Holy Spirit. One 
universal impulse pervaded, apparently, the minds of the whole people. Evidently 
hungering for the bread of life, they came together in vast multitudes. Every- 
where the ministry of these men was attended with the most extraordinat'y success. 
Very large numbers were baptized. Churches sprang up by scores. Among the 
converts were many able men, who at once entered the ministry, and swelled con- 
tinually the ranks of the messengers of salvation.' 

So quickly did the work of God spread amongst the people in every direction, 
that the influence of our Churches began to be felt in shaping the political destinies 
of the colony; and that influence has continued to our times. Prominent amongst 
the causes of this rapid growth was the character of the preaching. The preachers 
were from the people to whom they spoke, so that they understood their necessities 
and difficulties. Reports of many of these early sermons are extant. They are 
characterized by great simplicity of thought and structure, are peculiarly adapted 
to arouse the conscience to the need of Christ, to present his finished work in all 
its gracious bearings, and to lead to immediate decision in his service. Colonial life 
had fostered independent thought and a willingness to meet peril in shaking off 
the State Church, whose ministers no longer commanded the respect of the people. 
Formalism had engendered license in the pulpit as well as in the pew, so that many 
of the clergy were not only cruel, but immoral, also. The very means which in ear- 
lier years had been taken to hinder the spread of Baptist doctrines now contributed 
to their dissemination, and the people hungered for the bread of life. 



THEIR GREAT SUFFERINGS. 349 

Persecution, as usual, over-reached itself, and the reaction was very great. John 
Leland says, the Baptist ' ministers were imprisoned and the disciples buffeted.' 
James Madison, in writing to a Philadelphia friend, in 1774, said : 

' That diabolical, hell-conceived principle of persecution rages among some, 
and to their eternal infamy the clergy can furnish their quota of imps for such pur- 
poses. There are at the present time, in the adjacent county, not less than five or 
six well-meaning men in close jail for proclaiming their religious sentiments, 
which are in the main quite orthodox.' 

Yet this hard flint of persecution struck the true fire of soul liberty. Dr. 
Hawks is compelled to admit of the State clergy that they were in many cases a 
disgrace to their profession ; and Hammond denounces them thus : ' Many came, 
such as wore black coats and could babble in a pulpit, roar in a tavern, exact from 
their parishioners and, rather, by their dissoluteness, destroy than feed their flocks.' 
These so embittered the spirits of the baser class against the pure and godly men 
who went everywhere preaching the word that, even after the Toleration Act had 
compelled the colony to modify her laws, and they could not legally be imprisoned 
for preaching the Gospel, mob law was let loose upon them everywhere, and they 
were thrust into prison for the sin of others in disturbing the public peace. Every- 
where their congregations were disturbed and broken up. Howe says : ' A snake 
and a hornet's nest were thrown into their meeting, and even in one case fire-arms 
were brought to disperse them.' 7 Taylor says that the Baptist ministers were 

'Fined, pelted, beaten, imprisoned, poisoned and hunted with dogs ; their con- 
gregations were assaulted and dispersed ; the solemn ordinance of baptism was 
rudely interrupted, both administrators and candidates being plunged and held be- 
neath the water till nearly dead ; they suffered mock trials, and even in courts of jus- 
tice were subjected to indignities not unlike those inflicted by the infamous Jeffreys.' 

Dr. Semple, actuated by the same sweet spirit and sincere honesty which moved 
Ta}'lor, gives this description of the Baptist ministers : They ' were without learn- 
ing, without patronage, generally very poor, very plain in their dress, unrefined in 
their manners and awkward in their address; all of which, by their enterprising 
zeal and unceasing perseverance, they either turned. to advantage or prevented their 
ill effects.' 

Yet they had the stoutest hearts, the most masculine intellects, and some of them 
were eloquent to a proverb ; a perfect phalanx of Christian Spartans. About 
thirty of them were put in prison, some of them several times, but by preaching Jesus 
through the gates and on the high walls many were brought to Christ. Rev. Ele- 
azar Clay, the guardian of the great statesman, Henry Clay, wrote from Chesterfield 
County to John Williams : 'The preaching at the prison is not attended in vain, for 
we hope that several are converted, while others are under great distress and made 
to cry out, What shall we do to be saved ? ' and he begged him to come down and 
baptize the converts. Crowds gathered around the prisons at Fredericksburg, in the 



3SO 'HAD HOME' TO PRISON. 

counties of King and Queen, Culpepper, Middlesex and Essex, Orange and Caro- 
line. They were preached to by Harris, Ireland, Pickett, the Craigs, of whom 
there were three brothers, Greenwood, Barrow, "Weathersford, Ware, Tinsley, Wal- 
ler, Webber and others whose names will be honored while Virginia exists. And 
there are some noted cases of holy triumph, as in the prison at Culpepper, whence 
Ireland, much after the order of Bunyan, who was 'had home to prison in 
the county jail of Bedford,' dated his letters, from ' my palace in Culpepper.' 
On the very spot where the prison stood, where powder was cast under the floor 
to blow him up, and brimstone was burnt to suffocate him and poison was ad- 
ministered to kill him ; on that spot where he preached through the iron grates to 
the people, there the Baptist meeting-house now stands ; and the Church which oc- 
cupies it numbers more than 200 members. These diabolical schemes were all frus- 
trated and, after much suffering, he barely escaped with his life ; yet he says : ' My 
prison was a place in which I enjoyed much of the divine presence ; a day seldom 
passed without some token of the divine goodness toward me.' Waller, a most 
powerful man, who before his conversion was the terror of the good, being known 
as the 'Devil's Adjutant and Swearing Jack,' spent 113 days in four different pris- 
ons, besides enduring all forms of abuse ; but in Virginia alone he immersed 2,000 
believers and helped to constitute eighteen Churches. Want of space demands 
silence concerning a list of most illustrious ministers and laymen, whose names will 
never be honored as they deserve, until some equally illustrious son of Virginia 
shall arrange and shape her abundant mass of Baptist material with the integrity of 
a Bancroft and the eloquence of a Macaulay. For three months in succession three 
men of God lay in the jail at Fredericksburg for the crime of preaching the glo- 
rious Gospel of the blissful God — Elders Lewis Craig, John Waller and James 
Childs. But their brethren stood nobly by these grand confessors. Truly, in the 
words of Dr. Hawks, 

'•No dissenters in Virginia experienced for a time harsher treatment than did 
the Baptists. They were beaten and imprisoned ; and cruelty taxed its ingenuity to 
devise new modes of punishment and annoyance. The usual consequences followed. 
Persecution made friends for its victims ; and the men who were not permitted to 
speak in public found willing auditors in the sympathizing crowds who gathered 
around the prisons to hear them preach from the grated windows. It is not im- 
probable that this very opposition imparted strength in another mode, inasmuch a? 
it at last furnished the Baptists with a common ground on which to make resistance.' ? 

We shall see much more of their struggles for liberty to preach the Gospel 
when we come to consider the period of the Revolutionary War, and for the 
present must look at their internal affairs and growth. Although they multi- 
plied rapidly in the latter half of the eighteenth century, they were much di- 
vided by controversies amongst themselves ; first, on the question of Calvinism, 
and then, strangely enough, on Episcopacy. The Calvinistic controversy had been 
imported by the General and Particular Baptists, who had come from England. 



VIRGINIA BISHOPS OB APOSTLES. 351 

For a time they lived happily with each other, probably held together by the cohe-' 
sive power of opposition from without. But by and by, as they became stronger, 
they dropped the names of General and Particular and conducted their doctrinal 
contest under the name of Separate and Regular Baptists. Samuel Harris, John 
Waller and Jeremiah Walker were leaders on the Arminian side, while E. Craig, 
William Murphy and John Williams were leaders on the Calvinistic side; but while 
they conducted their debates with great freedom of utterance, they also clung to 
each other with brotherly love. Having suffered so much together in a common 
cause, the thought of separation was too painful to be endured. They, therefore, 
treated each other with all the cordiality of Christian gentlemen, or, as Mr. Spurgeon 
would say, they agreed to keep two bears in their house, ' bear and forbear ; ' and the 
result was, after a long and full discussion in 1787, they agreed to know each other, 
and to be known to others, as The United Baptist Churches of Christ in Virginia. 

The manner in which our Virginia fathers were exercised on the question of 
Episcopacy would be a topic of amusement to the Baptists there in our times, if 
reverence for their sires did not honor all their sincere convictions. The early 
General Baptists of England raised the question whether Ephesiansiv, 11-13, did 
not continue the Apostolic office in the Church after the death of the Apostles ; and 
thinking that it did, they selected an officer whose prerogatives were above those 
of an Elder, and for fully a century this officer visited their Churches as a Messenger 
or Superintendent, as they thought Timothy and Titus might have been. He was 
commonly elected and set apart to his work by an Association, and his chief duty 
was to itinerate, preach the Gospel, plant Churches and regulate their affairs. In 
the Confession of the General Baptists of 1678 his duties are thus laid down : 
' The Bishops have the government of those Churches that had suffrage in their 
election, and no others ordinarily ; as also to preach the word in the world.' Hook 
says that their work was ' to plant Churches, ordain officers, set in order things 
that were wanting in all the Churches, to defend the Gospel against gainsayers, and 
to travel up and down the world for this purpose.' The Virginia Baptist fathers, 
wanting to observe every thing that they thought was done in the Apostolic 
Churches, decided by a majority vote, at the General Association of 1775, that this 
office was to be continued, and appointed Samuel Harris for the district lying south 
of the James River ; shortly after which, Elijah Craig and John Waller were ap- 
pointed for that on the north side. At the previous meeting of this body, after 
two days; debate, they had deferred the further consideration of the subject for a 
year. That year was spent in warm discussion of the matter. Walker advocated 
the doctrine in a pamphlet, Ford opposed it in another, and the Association then 
unanimously elected Harris an Apostle by ballot. They observed a day of fasting 
before the ordination, at which Elijah Craig, Waller and Williams offered prayer, 
then each ordained minister present laid hands upon the head of Harris and gave 

him the hand of fellowship. At the autumn meeting Waller and Craig were 
25 



352 EPITAPH ON VIBOINIA APOSTLES. 

ordained, and these three Baptist Bishops were let loose npon the Churches under 
this rule : 

'If our Messenger, or Apostle, shall transgress in any manner, he shall be 
liable to dealing in any Church where the transgression is committed ; and the said 
Church is instructed to call helps from two or three neighboring Churches ; and if 
by them found a transgressor, a General Conference of the Churches shall be called 
to excommunicate or to restore him.' 9 

As might have been expected amongst Baptists, the advocates of the measure 
were not chosen ; the Churches put on their glasses and brought out their New 
Testaments to see where they could find this crotchet, and not finding it, at the 
next year's meeting of the Association the ' Apostles ' were very chop-fallen, and 
reporting their cold reception and discouragements, quit their high episcopacy at 
once. The Association was so much mortified at this play at priests that it had not 
the patience to pass an act. abolishing the apostolate, but let it die a natural death ; 
afterward, however, the body took a solemn farewell of its defunct bishopric by 
recording on its minutes the following declaration, as a sort of epitaph : ' That the 
office of apostles, like that of prophets, was the effect of miraculous inspiration ; 
and does not belong to ordinary times.' Nor since that day have Virginia Baptists 
seen any times extraordinary calling for the resurrection of their ' apostles.' 

The primitive Baptists of Virginia were often treated with contempt because 
man}' of their ministers were not classical scholars, and yet some of them were the 
peers of the first men in the pulpits of the colony, no matter of what denomina- 
tion ; not only in all that enstamps with a high and practical manhood, but also in 
the higher branches of education. They were men of profound knowledge in all 
that relates to Gospel truth, to the true science of human government, and to that 
patriotism which has made the Virginia commonwealth so great a power in our 
land. They wrought a work which even the heroes of Rhode Island did not equal 
iu some respects. Just as it is harder to purify a corrupted system than to originate 
one that is right and true, so far they excelled our brethren there. Their contest 
was steady, long and fiery, yet they never wavered, took no rash steps nor violent 
measiires, but, with true loyalty to their holy convictions, pressed on against all odds, 
until their resistless wisdom and energy, directed by an endm-ing perseverance that 
never flagged, gave them their deserved victory. Touching the question of educa- 
tion, it is little less than cruel to accuse them of ignorance, in view of the fact that 
they were not allowed to found schools, or build places of worship, nor to be at 
peace in their own homes. But as soon as they had conquered the right to breathe as 
faithful citizens and to organize Churches, despite their grinding oppressions, they 
at once betook themselves to the founding of schools and colleges, which have since 
become an honor to the State and nation. As it was, however, with their slight 
classical and theological attainments, they did not fail to reach some of the first minds 
in Virginia. So pure were they, so biblical and so true to high conviction, that 



DR. ALEXANDER AND THE BAPTISTS. 353 

many of her first citizens openly identified themselves both with their cause and 
Churches. Some who stood high as statesmen and as educators felt and confessed 
their powerful influence. 

Amongst these we find Dr. Archibald Alexander, born in 1772, and President 
of Hampden-Sidney College in 1796, one of the first scholars and divines in our 
country. In the frankest manner he unbosomed bis heart thus : 

' I fell into doubts respecting the authority of infant baptism. The origin of 
these doubts were in too rigid notions as to the purity of the Church, with a belief 
that receiving infants had a corrupting tendency. 1 communicated my doubts very 
freely to my friend, Mr. Lyle. and Mr. Speece, and found that they had both been 
troubled by the same. We talked much privately on the subject, and often con- 
versed with others in hope of getting some new light. At length Mr. Lyle and I 
determined to give up the practice of baptizing infants until we should receive 
more light. This determination we publicly communicated to our people and left 
them to take such measures as they deemed expedient ; but they seemed willing to 
admit the issue. We also communicated to the Presbytery the state of our minds, 
and left them to do what seemed good in the case ; but as they believed that we 
were sincerely desirous of aiming at the truth, they took no steps and I believe 
made no record. Things remained in this position for more than a year. During 
this time I read much on both sides, and carried on a lengthened correspondence, 
particularly with Dr. Hoge. Two considerations kept me back from joining the 
Baptists. The first was, that the universal prevalence of infant baptism, as early 
as the fourth and fifth centuries, was unaccountable on the supposition that no such 
practice existed in the times of the apostles. The other was, that if the Baptists 
are right they are the only Christian Church on earth, and all other denominations 
are out of the visible Church.' 

The soundness of the conclusions reached by this great head of the Alexander 
family, in the Presbyterian Church, will be differently estimated by different minds ; 
but, at the least, he shows the spreading influence of the Virginia Baptists at the 
close of the last century. His objections to the Baptists were essentially those of 
the Roman Catholic to our principles and practices ; and, ill-founded as they were, 
they prevented him from following his convictions on the main point at issue. 

.In another chapter it will be needful to treat of the Virginia Baptists, touching 
their active participation in the Revolutionary War, together with their prominence 
in settling the State policy of the Old Dominion, and the character of the Consti- 
tution of the United States. This chapter, therefore, must close with a reference 
to their alleged molding power upon Thomas Jefferson, in his political career, as 
one of the founders of our government. Many historical writers have told us that 
he was in the habit of attending the business and other meetings of a Baptist 
Church near his residence ; that he closely scrutinized its internal democratic policy 
and its democratic relations to its sister Churches ; that he borrowed his conceptions 
of a free government, State and Federal, from the simplicity of Baptist Church in- 
dependency and fraternity ; and that, frequently, in conversation with his friends, 
ministers and neighbors, he confessed his indebtedness to their radical principles for 
hifi fixed convictions on the true methods of civil and religions liberty. If this pop- 



354 JEFFERSON AND THE BAPTISTS. 

ular tradition were entirely unsupported by contemporary testimony, his earnest 
and public co-operation with the Baptists in Virginia politics, and the close identity 
between our form of government, which he did so much to frame, and that of the 
Baptist Churches, must ever contribute to keep it alive ; the strength of the coinci- 
dence being sufficient in itself to create such a tradition even if it did not already 
exist. Curtis says : 

' There was a small Baptist Church which held its monthly meetings for 
business at a short distance from Mr. Jefferson's house, eight or ten years before 
the American Revolution. Mr. Jefferson attended these meetings for several 
months in succession. The pastor on one occasion asked him how he was pleased 
with their Church government. Mr. Jefferson replied, that it struck him with 
great force and had interested him much, that he considered it the only form of 
true democracy then existing in the world, and had concluded that it would be the 
best plan of government for the American colonies. This was several years before 
the Declaration of Independence.' 10 

This author also says that he had this statement at second-hand only, front 
Mrs. Madison, wife of the fourth President of the United States, who herself had 
freely conversed with Jefferson on the subject, and that her remembrance of 
these conversations was ' distinct,' he ' always declaring that it was a Baptist Church 
from which these views were gathered.' Madison and Jefferson stood side by side 
with the Baptists in their contest for a free government, and they served together in 
the Committee of Seventeen in the Assembly of Virginia, when it was secured in 
1777. ' After desperate contests in that Committee almost daily, from the 11th of 
October to the 5th of December,' the measure was carried ; but Jefferson says of 
this struggle, in his autobiography, that it was ' the severest in which he was ever 
engaged.' Wo person then living had better opportunities for knowing the facts 
on this matter than had Mrs. Madison. Then the records of the early Baptists in 
Virginia show that there were Baptist Churches in Albemarle County, where 
Jefferson lived, which fact presents strong circumstantial evidence to the accuracy 
of this report. Semple mentions two such bodies, the Albemarle, founded in 1767, 
and the Toteer, 1775. John Asplund, in his Register for 1790, gives four Churches 
in that county, namely, 'Garrison's meeting, Pretey's Creek, Toteer Creek and 
White Sides Creek ; ' Garrison's having been organized in 1774 ; the othe'rs are 
given without date. He also says that these Churches had 258 members and 5 
ministers, namely : "William Woods, Jacob Watts, Bartlett Bennet, Martin Dawson 
and Benjamin Burger. This renders it certain that besides Jefferson's intimacy 
with John Leland and other well-known names of our fathers, he had opportu- 
nities enough at home to become acquainted with Baptist principles and practices. 
Though he was skeptical on the subject of religion, he always spoke warmly of his 
co-operation with the Baptists in securing religious liberty. In a letter written to 
his neighbors, the members of the Buck Mountain Baptist Church, 1809, he says : 
'We have acted together from the origin to the end of a memorable revolution, and 



REMARKABLE BAPTIST GROWTH. 383 

we have contributed, each in the line allotted us, our endeavors to render its issues 
a permanent blessing to our country.' 

It would be a pleasant task to trace the lives of some of the distinguished 
servants of God who tilled Virginia with Baptist Churches ; but their work erects for 
them an imperishable monument to which it is only needful to refer. We find that 
while the first Church was jilanted in the colony in 1714, in 1793 there were in the 
State 227 churches, 272 ministers, 22,793 communicants, and 14 Associations. 
Abiel Holmes says, in his ' American Annals ' (ii, 188 p.), that in 1793 the Baptists 
of the United States numbered 73,171, so that at that time Virginia contained 
nearly one third of the whole. In order to combine their efforts, a General 
Association was formed in 1771, which was dissolved in 1783 and, m 1781, a 
General Committee was organized to take its place, consisting of two delegates 
from each Association ; this again was superseded in 1800 by the General Meeting 
of Correspondence, which was composed of delegates from all the Associations and 
acted as a State Board of Baptist co-operation on all subjects of general interest. 
The statistics of our own times, however, far eclipse the ratio of growth in the 
most prosperous days of the last century. At the present, time, 1886, the Virginia 
Baptists have 42 Associations, 868 ordained ministers, 1,60S churches, into whose 
fellowship there were baptized last year 12,182 persons, making a total membership 
in the State of 238,266 ; being the largest number of Baptists in any State except- 
ing Georgia. This prosperity is the more remarkable when we take into account 
that within the present century the largest defection from the regular Baptist ranks 
that has been known in this country took place in Virginia, under the late Rev. 
Alexander Campbell. Without a brief sketch of that movement the history of the 
Baptists there would be very imperfect, hence it is here submitted. 

Alexander Campbell, a seceding minister from the North of Ireland, came to 
America in 1807, and became pastor of a Presbyterian Church in West Pennsylvania. 
Soon his father, Thomas Campbell, came to differ materially in some things with 
that Church, and set up worship in his own house, avowing this principle : ' When 
the Scriptures speak, we speak ; where they are silent, we are silent.' A number 
adopted this doctrine and gathered at the meetings. Andrew Munro, a clear- 
headed seceder, said at once : ' If we adopt that as a basis, there is an end of infant 
baptism.' Soon both Thomas and Alexander, his son, with five others of the family 
rejected infant baptism, and on June 12th, 1812, -were immersed on profession of 
their faith in Christ, in Buffalo Creek, by Elder Luce, and were received into 
the fellowship of the Bush Pun Baptist Church. After this Alexander began to 
call in question the scripturalness of certain Baptist views and usages, chiefly in 
relation to the personal agency of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, the consequent 
relation of a Christian experience before baptism and the effect of baptism itself. 
As nearly as the writer could express Mr. Campbell's views, after much conversation 
with him, he held : That no man can be born of God but by the word of truth as 



3S6 REV. ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 

found in the Bible ; that the Scriptures, being inspired by the Holy Spirit, the 
only agency of the Spirit which acts on the soul is exerted through the word of 
Scripture ; that the act of regeneration is not completed until the soul obeys Christ 
in the act of baptism ; and that, as baptism is Christ's appointed method of confess- 
ing him, the washing away of sin is connected with that act or evinced thereby. 
The Baptists from whom he retired also held to the full inspiration of the Holy 
Scriptures, and that God addresses himself to the soul of man through that word, 
but that the Holy Spirit applies that word to the soul in so powerful a manner, by 
his direct and personal agency, as to lead it to a perfect trust on Christ for salvation 
and that then he is born from above, or regenerated. That when the Spirit bears 
witness with his spirit that he is a child of God, and he can testify of the grace of 
God in saving him, he has then become a fit subject for baptism ; and so the act of 
baptism publicly attests his love for Christ, his obedience to him and the remission 
of his sins, as one who is dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God. The point of 
divergence between him and the Baptists was so vital and radical, that every step 
which followed widened the distance. Mr. Campbell came to regard what is known 
as the relation of Christian experience, not only as savoring of mere impulse at the 
best, but as often running into superstition and even fanaticism ; while the Baptists 
insisted on satisfactory testimony from the Holy Spirit to the convert's heart, and 
then from his own lips to the Church, that a moral renovation was w r rought in his 
whole moral nature by the Holy Spirit himself, in which work he had used the 
inspired word as his divine instrument in effecting salvation. 

Of course, much warm controversy ensued, the convictions of each party 
deepened with the progress of the contest, divisions took place in Churches and 
Associations, the rent ran not only through Virginia but through the entire South 
and South-west, and the two bodies appear to be about as far apart as ever, with this 
difference, that time and circumstances have softened old asperities and cooled the 
heat of fierce debate. The leaders in the combat were men of might on both sides. 
Mr. Campbell possessed a powerful intellect, which largely predominated over the 
emotional in his nature. He was of French descent on his mother's side, of Irish 
and Highland Scotch on his father's. He was very positive, unyielding, fearless 
and capable of wonderful endurance. Without being over-polite or ceremonious, 
his manners were bland and conciliating. While his mind was entirely self-directing, 
there was no show of vanity about him ; and while not an orator in a high sense, his 
manner of speaking was prepossessing from the utter absence of cant in expression 
or whine in tone. There was a warm play of benevolence in his face and a frank 
open-heartedness in his speech, which was clothed in the dress of logic and armed 
with pointed artful sarcasm which seldom failed to influence his hearers. 

Probably the nearest counterpart to himself whom he found amongst all his op- 
ponents, and who most counteracted his influence as a strong and cool reasoner, was 
Dr. Jeremiah B. Jeter, one of the broadest and best men that Virginia ever produced 



REV. DR. JETER. 357 

either in the Baptist ministry or any other. He was a native of that State, born in 
1802, and was baptized in 1821, addressing the crowd on the bank of the Otter 
River as he ascended from the water. He began to preach in Bedford County, 
and was the first missionary appointed by the General Association of Virginia, 
in 1823. He filled various pastorates in that State until 1835, when he became 
pastor of the First Church in Richmond, where he continued for fourteen 
years. He had baptized more than 1,000 persons before he went to Richmond, and 
was honored by the baptism of about the same number while in this Church. 
In 1849 he took charge of the Second Church in St. Louis, but returned to Rich- 
mond as the pastor of Grace Street Church in 1852. The last fourteen years of his 
life were spent as editor of the ' Religions Herald.' As early as 1837 he had shown 
himself a master of the pen in his ' Life of Clopton,' and this work was soon 
followed by the memoirs of Mrs. S chuck and of Andrew Broadus. All this had 
been but a training for his remarkable polemic work, in which he examined and 
answered the positions of Mr. Campbell. It is in this work chiefly that the fullness 
and roundness of his character appear. Clear, vigorous, courteous, unassuming 
and child-like, devoid of boastfulness, forgetful of himself and apparently uncon- 
scious of his own ability, he throws a blending of beautiful virtues into a majestic 
logic that no other writer has approached on that subject. He far excels Mr. 
Campbell in the graces of style and in suavity of spirit, wdiile he is fully his equal 
in self-possession and out-spoken frankness, and more than his match in that manly 
argumentation which carries conviction to devout men. Dr. Jeter did splendid 
work in the pulpit and in building up the educational and missionary interests of 
the South. It is right and meet-that a statue of this princely man should adorn 
the Memorial Hall at Richmond and that his manuscripts should increase its 
wealth, but his truest likeness is traceable in his writings, and it will be bright 
and fresh there when the marble has moldered into dust. These two great men 
of Virginia have gone to give their account to God, and their memory is cherished 
by thousands of their friends, nor will either of them be soon forgotten as gladiators 
for the truth as they respectively saw truth. While the name of the one lives, that 
of the other can never be blotted out. This chapter may properly be closed by a 
sketch of another nobleman, who, though not a native of Virginia, is perhaps, taking 
him in all things, its first citizen at this time. 

Jabez L. M. Curry, D.D., LL.D., was born in Lincoln County, Ga., June 5th, 
1825. He was graduated from the University of Georgia in 1813, and from the 
Dane Law School, at Harvard University, in 1845. In 1847, '53 and '55 he served 
in Congress from Alabama. He was known there as an active friend of public and 
higher education and of internal improvements; as chairman of the proper com- 
mittee' he wrote a report and introduced a bill favoring geological survey. In 1856 
he was chosen as Fresidential Elector for Alabama, and in 1857-59 was again re- 
turned to Congress from Alabama. During the Civil War he served in the Con fed- 



8S8 



HON. AND REV. DR. CURRY. 




erate Congress and army, at its close was elected President of Howard College, in 
Alabama, and two years later, first Professor of English in Richmond College, then 
Professor of Constitutional and International Law, and also of Philosophy, in the 
same institution. When he re- 
signed his professorships he was 
chosen President of its Board of 
Trustees. He was appointed Gen- 
eral Agent of the Peabody Educa- 
tion Eund in 1881, and addressed 
every Southern Legislature, some 
of them two or three times, in be- 
half of public and normal schools. 
He is one of the most ardent and 
eloquent advocates of the education 
of the Negro, as the best qualifica- 
tion for the maintenance and exer- 
cise of his fullest civil and consti- 
tutional rights. No man in our 
country has written, spoken and 
planned more earnestly in behalf 
of national aid for the removal and 
prevention of illiteracy. 

In September, 1885, President Cleveland appointed him, without application 
on his own part, Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain. His reception by that court 
has been most cordial, and his labors there for the protection of American rights 
and the promotion of American commerce have been successful. His brethren 
repose great confidence in his practical wisdom and integrity. For this reason they 
commonly place him in responsible places when his presence is available. He is an 
able debater, perfectly conversant with parliamentary law. For several years he 
was Clerk, then Moderator of the Coosa River Association, President of the Ala- 
bama Baptist State Convention, also of the Virginia General Association, and of the 
Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Convention. Dr. Curry is a powerful and 
enthusiastic preacher of the Gospel. He received the degree of D.D. in 1857 from 
the Mercer University, and has preached much ; but, though often invited, he has 
uniformly declined to become a pastor. The address which he delivered before 
the Evangelical Alliance, in New York, in 1873, on the union of Church and State, 
excited universal attention, and the Liberation Society of Great Britain adopted 
and stereotyped it as one of their effective documents. The Rochester University 
conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws in 1872. He demands of all, 
and in himself presents, unsullied integrity in public life and the inseparableness of 
private and public morality. 



M. CURRY, D.D., LL.D. 



CHAPTER VII. 

BAPTISTS OF CONNECTICUT AND NEW YORK. 

IN considering the introduction and spread of Baptist principles into the other 
colonies, it will be proper to take them up in the chronological order in which 
their first Churches severally were formed. First of all, then, we have Connect- 
icut, which colony lived under the charter of Charles II., as regards religious 
privileges, until 1818. As early as A. D. 1674 some Baptists of Rhode Island occa- 
sionally crossed the borders and immersed converts in Connecticut, who united with 
their Churches in Rhode Island. These, however, were regarded as unwarrantable 
innovations ; they attracted the attention of the Standing Order (Presbyterial-Con- 
gregational), and the secular power was invoked to suppress them. One of these 
invasions took place at Waterford, but they were not oft-repeated. The ministers 
of the State Church were supported by levying and collecting their salaries regu- 
larly with other taxes. Trumbull informs us that before 1706 the persons of the 
ministers were free from all taxation, but their families and estates were taxable ; in 
that year the Legislature exempted these from taxation. 1 The law made the State 
Church the lawful congregation, and subjected all persons who neglected attend- 
ance there on ' the Lord's Day ' to a fine of twenty shillings. It also forbade ' sep- 
arate companies in private houses,' and inflicted a fine of ten pounds, with '• corporal 
punishment by whipping, not exceeding thirty stripes for each offense,' on every 
'person, not being a lawful minister,' who 'shall presume to profane the holy sacra- 
ments by administering or making a show of administering them to any person or 
persons whatever, and being thereof convicted.' Connecticut and New Haven 
were separate governments till the reign of Charles II., when they were united 
under one charter. But this basis of government did not contain a single clause 
authorizing the Legislature to enact any religious laws, establish any form of relig- 
ion or an} 7 religious tests, and, properly speaking, the attempt to bind these on the 
colony was of itself a usurpation. 

A few scattered Baptists in the south-eastern part of the colony humbly peti- 
tioned the General Court in 1704 for liberty to hold meetings and establish a Church 
in Groton. Their prayer seems not to have been noticed, but, nothing daunted, 
the same band sent a fraternal request to Valentine Wightman, a gifted young 
preacher in Rhode Island, to become their leader, and in 1705 he came and organ- 
ized them into the First Baptist Church of Connecticut. This pioneer body num- 
bered less than a score, but they were firm, united and liberal minded. Thev pre- 



360 VALENTINE WIGHTMAN AT GROTON. 

sen ted their brave young pastor at once with twenty acres of land, and Deacon Will- 
iam Stark erected upon it a suitable parsonage. It is still a flourishing Church in 
the village of Mystic, after a life of one hundred and eighty-one years. Wightinan 
was a descendant of Edward, who was the last martyr under James I., and whose 
ashes fell amongst the fagots of Lichfield market-place in 1611. This first Bap- 
tist pastor of Connecticut was an extremely serene and quiet character, but his 
amiable soul flashed the fire of a true witness from his eye upon the bigots who 
would interfere with him. He possessed sound learning, great zeal and deep piety. 
A. certain calm discretion made him symmetrical and consistent, and adapted him 
io cautious but intrepid leadership in his new and trying position. He was a close 
'Student of the Scriptures and a powerful preacher, caring tenderly for the flock of 
Christ. Then, he brought from his native commonwealth a mild tolerance of spirit 
tor all men, with a love for their salvation which disarmed opposition. Yet no 
Church could legally exist without permission from the secular power ; but it was 
doubly difficult to seeure this tolerance for Baptists. Moreover, Wightinan sought 
not the approbation of the neighboring clergy, for he contended that it was the right 
of every man to worship God as he pleased. His quiet firmness had much to do 
with that gradual relaxing of the law which at last permitted a man to show that he 
was a member in a Baptist Church and paid toward its support, and sb could be fur- 
nished with a certificate of exemption from liability to distraint or imprisonment 
for refusing to pay the minister's tax of the State establishment. 

Mr. Wightinan and his flock never were so severely oppressed as were some 
Baptists in the colony. His sterling worth commanded the respect of the neigh- 
boring clergy from the first, and the enlightened tact by which he led his people 
often silenced the clamor of the Standing Order in that vicinity. But in many 
other places nothing could prevent seizure of the property of Non-conformists for 
refusing to pay the clerical tax, enforced as it often was by fiery zealots clothed with 
brief authority. At one time a number of Baptists, including their minister, were 
taken in the very act of worshiping God. They were promptly incarcerated in the 
New London county jail for attending a religious meeting ' contrary to law on the 
Sabbath day.' One of the prisoners was a babe at its mother's breast ; the prison 
was fireless and the weather bitterly cold, yet the child lived and grew up to be a suc- 
cessful preacher of the Baptist faith, for which he innocently suffered. Ebenezer 
Frothingham, of Middletown, wrote a book in 1767, in which he says that as a 
Separate he was confined in Hartford prison for nearly five months, for nothing 
but exhorting and warning the people after the public worship was done and the 
assembly dismissed. And while confined there five others were imprisoned for the 
same crime. He also says that 

' Young Deacon Drake, of Windsor, now in Hartford prison for the ministers' 
rates and building their meeting-house, altho' he is a Baptist, is accounted a harm- 
less, godly man ; and he has plead the privilege of a Baptist through all the courts, 



OPPRESSIVE TAXES. 361 

and been at great expense, without relief, till at last the Assembly has given him a 
mark in his hand, and notwithstanding this, they have thrust him to prison for for- 
mer rates, with several aggravations which I shall omit. But as to what the Con- 
stitution does to relieve the poor deacon, he may there die, and the cry of blood, 
blood, go up into the ears of a just God. 2 

In other cases, venerable ministers of the Gospel were whipped at the town- 
post, or at the tail of an ox-cart, as they were driven through the town. Some- 
times they were placarded and placed on horseback, and otherwise ignominiously 
treated for preaching Christ. Nathan Jewett, of Lyme, a member of the Baptist 
Church there, was expelled from the Legislature because he was not of the Standing 
Order. Still, one Church slowly grew up after another. In 1710 a Baptist Church 
was organized at Waterford ; in 1735 another in Wallingford; one in Stonington, 
one in Lyme and one in Colchester the same year, and one at Saybrook in 17M. 
The first Baptist meetings were not held in Norwich till 1770, and in other large 
towns it was much later still before Churches were formed. When the minister's 
tax was to be collected, the dissenting lajmian's cow or the contents of his corn- 
crib were seized and taken to the town post to be sold, and the contumacious delin- 
quent considered himself fortunate if he escaped the stocks, always found hard by 
the sign-post or the jail. Here follows one of the old forms under which these out- 
rages were committed : 

'Levy. 

' To Samuel Perkins, of Windham, in Windham County, a Collector of Society 
Taxes in the first Society in Windham : 
' Greeting : By authority of the State of Connecticut, you are hereby com- 
manded forthwith to levy and collect of the persons named in the foregoing list 
herewith committed to you, each one his several proportion as therein set down, of 
the sum total of such list, being a rate agreed upon by the inhabitants of said Society 
for the purpose of defraying the expenses of said Society, and to deliver and pay 
over the sums which you shall collect to the Treasurer of said Society within sixty 
days next coming; and if any person shall neglect or refuse to pay the sum at which 
he is assessed, you are hereby commanded to distrain the goods, chattels, or lands of 
such person so refusing ; and the same being disposed of as the law directs, return 
the overplus, if any, to the respective owners ; and for want of such goods, chat- 
tels, or lands whereon to make distress, you are to take the body or bodies of the 
persons so refusing, and them commit to the keeper of the gaol in said County of 
Windham within the prison, who is hereby commanded to receive and safe keep 
them until they pay and satisfy the aforesaid sums at which they are respectively as- 
sessed, together with your fees, unless said assessment, or any part thereof, be legally 
abated. Dated at Windham, this 12th day of September, 1791. 

' Jabez Clark, Just. Peace.' 

The efforts of the Baptists to throw off this yoke are matters of well-attested 
history. They adopted resolutions in Churches and Associations, they carried up 
petitions from year to year to the law-making bodies, and sent the ablest counsel, at 
heavy expense, to seek the redress of grievances and demand complete equality be- 



3 82 STUDENTS EXPELLED FROM YALE. 

fore the law, for many years. Indeed, the ' Baptist Petition,' as it was called, came to 
be almost a by-word amongst the State officers, and when at last, in 1818, the rights of 
conscience were secured in the new constitution, it was a matter of surprise, and most 
of all were the Baptists themselves surprised, to find that the article which changed 
the fundamental law on that subject was drawn by Rev. Asahel Morse, one of their 
own ministers from Suffield. As in Massachusetts, so in Connecticut, the New 
Light or Separate movement under Whitefield and Edwards resulted in the rapid 
advancement of the Baptist cause. For about twenty years, from 1740 to 1760, 
perpetual excitement abounded and about forty Separatist Churches were estab- 
lished, taking the very best elements, in many cases, out of the State Churches. In 
process of time a number of them became Baptist Churches bodily, and in other 
cases they gradually blended with the Baptists, for their cause was one in essence. 
They demanded deliverance from the curse of the Half-way Covenant and freedom 
to worship. God as regenerate people. So enraged did the State Churches and the 
Legislature become, that they repealed a former act under which Baptists and others 
of 'sober consciences' had enjoyed partial liberty, and then, as Trumbull says, there 
was ' no relief for any person dissenting from the established mode of worship in 
Connecticut. The Legislature not only enacted these severe and unprecedented 
laws, but they proceeded to deprive of their offices such of the justices of the peace 
and other officers as were New Lights, as they were called, or who favored their 
cause.' The two Clevelands, students, and their tutors were expelled from Yale 
College by President Clapp because they attended a private meeting 'for divine 
worship, carried on principally by one Soloman Paine, a lay exhorter, on several Sab- 
baths in September and October last.' These two young men pleaded that this was 
the meeting where their godly father went, and for this crime of bowing before God 
they were excluded from that honorable institution. The same spirit prevailed in 
the Congregational Churches. According to Whittemore, the Church, at Middle- 
town had for some years a few members in its fellowship who entertained Baptist 
views. But at a meeting held August 9th, 1795, it passed the following: ' When 
members of this Church shall renounce infant baptism and embrace the Baptist 
principles and practice baptism by immersion, they shall be considered by that act 
as withdrawing their fellowship from this Church, and we consider our covenant 
obligations with them as Church members dissolved.' When it is remembered that 
their membership was not of choice but of law, we see the injustice of this act. 
'Rev. Stephen Parsons, who bad been pastor of the Church for seven years, an- 
nounced one Sabbath morning that he had embraced the opinions of the Baptists 
and was immediately dismissed. ... He with a number of his brethren and sis- 
ters withdrew, were soon after baptized, and on the 29th of October, 1795, a 
meeting was held in the house of a Mr. Doolittle for the purpose of recognizing 
the Church.' 3 The venerable Judge Wm. H. Potter, an alumnus of Yale, thus elo- 
/quently sets forth the temper of the times. He says : 



SEPARATISTS AND BAPTISTS UNITE. 363 

'The unfortunate Separates were pursued into every calling, hunted out of 
every place of trust, hauled before clergy and Church, dragged before magistrates, 
and suffered without stint and without much complaint countless civil and ecclesi- 
astical penalties, as heretics or felons, but oppression only confirmed their faith and 
thrust them into a closer union with their Baptist fellow-sufferers who, as in duty 
bound, joyfully espoused the cause and rights of the Separates. And why should 
they not fraternize? The Baptists, upon whom persecution had well-nigh ex- 
hausted its impotent attempts, either to extirpate or seduce, were, to be sure, 
regarded by the hierarchy as impracticables, and had been invidiously permitted 
under the Act of the first year of William and Mary to organize Churches. But 
they were still laboring under many legal impediments and more prejudices. Their 
memories, if not their backs, were still smarting under the pungent discipline of the 
same hierarchy. Their preachers had been familiar with lines, forfeitures and 
prisons, and their people with distraints, odium and disfranchisement. Herein 
there must have been a common sympathy. Then, the soul-stirring doctrines of 
New Lights were already the cherished doctrines of the Baptists. The same 
annunciation of the rich, free and sovereign grace of God, and the doctrines of the 
cross which Whitefield and Wheeloek made on a wider field and with such signal 
success, were identical with those of Wightman and the Callenders. The Separates, 
therefore, had little to sacrifice in coming to the Baptists.' 4 

The law treated the Separates as malefactors and outcasts, and some of them 
were handled so much worse than many of the Baptists that the latter sympathized 
with them, succored them and threw open their doors to make them welcome as 
brethren in like tribulation. 

At first, when a Baptist and Separate Church became one, or when large num- 
rbers of Separates united with a Baptist Church, the chief difference between the 
two was found in the lax views of the Separates on the subject of communion. 
The Supper had always been grossly perverted by the Standing Order to ecclesias- 
tical-politico uses, and these notions the so-called New Lights brought with them to 
the Baptists. They could not easily rid themselves of this relic of State Church 
life, but in process of time they adopted healthier views and, falling into Baptist 
line, fully embraced their principles. While the few Baptist ministers of that day 
were not men of learning, they commonly possessed a fair public school education, 
which they used with sound sense in laying broad foundations for their free and 
independent Churches. They had slight salaries or none at all, which, for the 
general good of Baptist interests, left them free to devote a portion of their time to 
other fields besides their own pastorates, doing the work of evangelists and planting 
new Churches in many places. Wightman did much of this work, extending his 
labors as far as New York city. Three generations of Wightmans succeeded to 
the pastorate of the First Church, Groton, covering, with short intervals, a century 
and a quarter. Our few and feeble Churches were thoroughly evangelical and 
simple in their utterances of divine truth, and their Declarations of Faith were 
little else than a succession of quotations from the Bible, whose text alone was their 
creed. Their general practice also was as consistent as their doctrines, but at one 
time they partook to some extent in their worship of the general excitement which 



364 WHITEFIELD' S PREACHING. 

attended the preaching of Whitefield, Davenport and the elder Edwards. No part 
of America was more deeply moved than Connecticut under the labors of these men. 
Whitefield's preaching, especially, agitated the Churches of the Standing Order to 
their center. They had foolishly closed all their pulpits against him, and multitudes 
assembled in the open air to listen to his preaching. A fair proportion of their 
clergy, however, sympathized with him and went with their people, nor were they 
alarmed at those physical and so-called fanatical manifestations which accompanied 
his preaching, described by Edwards. Often a subtile but irresistible influence 
would fall upon his congregations, somewhat resembling a panic on a battle-field. 
Multitudes would surge back and forth, would raise a simultaneous cry of agony, 
many would fall to the earth, remaining long in a state of unconsciousness, and 
then awoke as from a trance-like state enraptured with an ecstatic joy. 

The Baptists, with such of the Standing Order as co-operated with Whitefield and 
his immediate followers, all blended in his support, and wonderful tilings occurred 
through this new discipleship. It is stated on good authority that the parsonage at 
Center Groton was the scene of one of the most remarkable sermons of this great 
preacher. The upper windows of the house were removed and a platform raised in 
front, facing a large yard full of forest trees. When Whitefield passed through the 
window to this stand and cast his eye over the multitude, he saw a number of young 
men who, imitating Zaccheus in the sycamore, had climbed these trees and were 
perched on their limbs. The kind hearted orator asked them to come down, saying: 
' Sometimes the power of God falls on these occasions and takes away the might 
of strong men. I wish to benefit your souls and not have your bodies fall out of 
these trees.' He expected to see them come down to the ground as birds that 
were shot ; and choosing the valor of discretion they came down, only to be pros- 
trated under the sermon. Great numbers of his hearers went home to lead new 
lives, and it is said that more than one of these young men became preachers of the 
new faith. 

No Baptist Church in Connecticut fought a nobler battle for life and freedom 
than that at Norwich. Dr. Lord was the pastor of the State Church there, and 
appears to have been a very excellent man. He was inclined^at first to work with the 
revivalists, but the breaking up of the ancient order of things amongst what were 
known as the Old Lights alarmed him, and the bent of circumstances forced him 
into ultra-conservatism. Then he began to oppress and persecute those of his 
congregation who took the other side, and the result was that a large secession from 
his Church formed a new Separatist body. In due time a Baptist Church sprang 
chiefly out of this and Norwich became a large source of Baptist power. Poor 
Parson Lord had hard times generally in these contests and, in particular, was com- 
pelled to collect his own taxes. 

Denison tells us that ' he called upon a Mr. Collier, who was a barber, when 
the following dialogue ensued : 



BAPTIST TRIUMPH IN CONNECTICUT. 365 

' Dr. L. " Mr. Collier, I have a small bill against you." 

' Mr. C. " A bill against me, Dr. Lord ? for what ? " 

k ./??*. L. " Why, your rate for my preaching." 

' Mr. C. " For your preaching? Why,'! have never heard you. I don't recol- 
lect that I ever entered your meeting-house." 

' Dr. L. " That's not my fault, Mr. Collier, the meeting-house was open." 

' Mr. C. " Very well. But, look here ; I have a small bill against you, Dr. Lord." 

'•Dr. L. " A bill against me? for what? " 

' Mr. C. " Why, for barbering." 

' Dr. L. " For barbering? I never before entered your shop." 

' Mr. G. " That's not my fault, Dr. Lord, my shop was open ! " ' 5 

The Norwich Church prospered, and our brethren met for worship in their 
own houses until want of room compelled them first to gather in a rope-walk, and 
then to erect a meeting-house of their own. But they, as well as the Separates, 
were slow of heart to learn all that the Baptists taught them, and it is quite delicious 
to know that they burnt their own fingers in consequence. In those days, when the 
State Churches wanted to build a meeting-house, they commonly asked the Legislature 
for a Lottery Grant on which to raise money. The Norwich Baptists, thinking it 
no harm for them to be as ridiculous as other respectable folk, applied to the General 
Assembly for such a Grant. Whereupon, that august body refused : first, because 
the Baptists did not indorse the Ecclesiastical Laws; secondly, because they were 
not known in law as a denomination; thirdly, because Rev. Mr. S terry, the Baptist 
pastor at Norwich, was the co-editor of a Republican paper. 6 For these reasons, our 
brethren were informed that they could not be allowed to gamble like good, legal 
and orthodox saints. This word to the wise had a wholesome effect upon them,i 
for although they have now built a number of excellent church edifices, and 
have liberally helped others to do the same, they have never once since asked for a 
State Lottery to help them in building houses for God. Few States in our Union 
can show a nobler list of pioneer Baptist pastors or a more illustrious line of suc- 
cessors than Connecticut. Amongst the first we have the three Wightmans, 
Yalentine, Timothy and Gano; then follow the four Burrowses, Silas, Amos, Peleg 
and Roswell. The three Aliens follow: Ichabod, Rufus and Stephen; and the 
two Bolles, David and Matthew, the Palmers and the Rathbuns ; together with 
Backus and Baldwin and a list that cannot now be named. In later times we have 
had Knapp and Cushman, Swan and Hodge, Ives and Miller, Turnbull and Phelps, 
Palmer and Lathrop, their illustrious peers. Many of these have long since entered 
into their Master's joy, and over a few others the sheen of their holy Home begins 
to glow, falling softly on their scant locks. To these their departed brethren begin 
to look like shining ones sent back with lamps of Christ's trimming to escort them 
to the celestial gate. Heaven bless the waiting band, and when their work is done 
give them a triumphant entrance into the city of the great King. The Baptists of 
Connecticut now number 6 Associations, 122 ordained ministers. 124 churches 
and 21,666 members. 



366 CONVENTICLES AND MEETINGS FORBIDDEN. 

New Yokk. The Documentary History of New York first mentions Baptists 
in 1644, and calls them ' Mfiists,' Mennonists or Mennonites, but does not tell us in 
what part of the colony they were found. 7 The Director and Council of New 
Netherland treated them harshly enough. On the 6th of June, 1641, they gave the 
' free exercise of religion ' to the Church of England, and October 10th, 1645, granted 
a special charter to the town of Flushing with the same right. They soon found, 
however, that sundry heretics, Independents, of Middleburg (Newtown), and Luther- 
ans, of New Amsterdam, were using the same liberty, and they took the alarm. On 
February 1st, 1656, the authorities decreed that all ' conventicles and meetings ' held 
in the province, 'whether public or private,' should be 'absolutely and expressly 
forbidden ; ' that only the ' Reformed Divine service, as this is observed and en- 
forced according to the Synod of Dootrecht,' should be held, 

' Under the penalty of one hundred pounds Flemish, to be forfeited by all 
those who, being unqualified, take upon themselves, either on Sundays or other days, 
any office, whether of preacher, reader or singer, in such meetings differing from the 
customary and legal assemblies, and twenty-live like pounds to be forfeited by every 
one, whether man or woman, married or unmarried, who is found in such meetings.' 

They disclaimed all intention to put any constraint of conscience in violation of 
* previously granted patents,' and imprisoned some Lutherans, which act excited such 
indignation that they were compelled, June 14th, 1656, to permit the Lutherans to 
worship in their own houses. Not content with this, they threw themselves into 
direct collision with the town of Flushing, in violation of their patent grant- 
ing religious freedom to that town. Under its charter Flushing, by resolution, 
claimed the right of Quakers and other sects to worship God within their jurisdic- 
tion without restraint. On the 26th of March, 1658, therefore, the New Nether- 
land authorities passed an ordinance annulling the right of Flushing to hold town 
meetings, forbidding heresy in the town and requiring its magistrates to select ' a 
good, honest, pious and orthodox minister,' subject to the approval of the. provin- 
cial authorities, and requiring each land-owner of that town to pay twelve stivers an- 
nually for his support, together with tenths if necessary, and that all who would not 
comply with these demands within six weeks should lose their goods, which should 
be sold, and they must take themselves 'out of this government.' 

We have seen in a previous chapter that many of the New England colonists 
fled to the Dutch for liberty to worship God and keep a good conscience. Amongst 
these were some of the friends of Hanserd Knollys in 1641, and a little later Lady 
Deborah Moody, widow of Sir Henry of Garsden, in Wiltshire. She, together 
with Mrs. King, of Swampscott, and the wife of John Tillton, was tried at the 
Quarterly Court, December, 1642, ' for houldinge that the baptizing of infants is noe 
ordinance of God.' It does not appear that she was actually banished from Massa- 
chusetts, but having first fled from England on account of persecution, and finding 
herself an object of arraignment and reproach in her new home, for the free ex- 



LADY MOODY AND GRAVE SEND. 367 

pression of her religions views, her sensitive and high spirit revolted, and she deter- 
mined to abandon Massachusetts and seek peace amongst strangers. In 1643 she 
went to New Amsterdam, thirteen years before the New Netherland authorities is- 
sued their tyrannical decree. Governor Winthrop tells us that she did this ' against 
the advice of all her friends. Many others affected with Anabaptism removed 
thither also. She was after excommunicated ' from the Salem Church. In a letter 
written by Endicott to Winthrop, dated Salem, the 22d of the second month, 1644, 
he says that Mr. Norrice had informed him that she intended to return, and he ad- 
vises against her return, ' unless shee will acknowledge her ewill in opposing the 
Churches & leave her opinions behinde her, ffor she is a dangerous woeman. My 
brother Ludlow writt to mee that, by meanes of a booke she sent to Mrs. Eaton, 
shee questions her owne haptisme, it is verie doubtefull whether shee will be re- 
claymed, shee is so far ingaged.' On her way from Massachusetts she stopped for 3 
time at New Haven, where she made several converts to her new views and fell 
into fresh difficulties in consequence. As Winthrop tells us, Mrs. Eaton, wife of 
the first Governor of New Haven Colony, was one of these converts. She also 
was a lady of high birth and culture, the daughter of an English Bishop. Daven- 
port, her pastor, was at unwearied pains to reclaim her from the 'error' of 'imagin- 
ing that pedobaptism is unlawful.' It was alleged against her, that she importuned 
Lady Moody ' to lend her a book made by A. R.' The records of the Congregational 
Church at New Haven show that she was severely handled for stoutly denying that 
' Baptism has come in the place of circumcision, and is to be administered unto 
infants.' By some Lady Moody has been called a follower of George Fox, but 
this was three years before he began to preach in England. On the south-west 
coast of Long Island, near New Amsterdam, a settlement had been formed in 
1643, which Governor Kieft had named Gravesend, after a Dutch town on the 
Maas. Lady Moody took a patent of land there of him, December 19th, 1645, which, 
among other things, guaranteed ' the free libertie of conscience according to the 
eostome of Holland, without molestation or disturbance from any madgistrate or 
madgistrates, or any other ecclesiastical minister that may pretend jurisdiction over 
them.' For a time, her religious sentiments disturbed her amicable relations with 
the Dutch authorities, without regard to her patent. Here she died, it is sup- 
posed, about 1659. Many others of like sentiments gathered about her, ' with liberty 
to constitute themselves a body politic as freemen of the Province and town of 
Gravesende,' according to the patent. The learned James W. Gerard says : ' The 
settlers at Gravesend seem to have been generally affected with Anabaptist views, 
and to have had no settled Church.' 8 Clearly, there were two Baptist ministers at 
Flushing in those days, the first in order of time being Rev. Francis Doughty. 
Mandeville, in his ' Flushing Past and Present,' says that he fled from ' the troubles 
in England, and found that he had got out of the frying-pan into the fire.' He 

preached at Lynn and Taunton, Mass., ' and denied baptism to infants.' At Taunton 
26 



368 REV. WILLIAM WICKENDEN. 

he was dragged out of the public assembly and brought before the magistrates, 
charged with saying that ' Abraham ought to have been baptized.' He then fled to 
Long Island and became the first pastor at Flushing, but in 1656 went to Virginia. 
'He was unquestionably the first religious teacher in Flushing, and had adopted 
Baptist views of the ordinance of baptism.'' 9 

Aside from Lady Moody and Mr. Doughty, the first full account that we have 
from the records of New Netherland that there were Baptists in the colony, is found 
in an official paper on 'The State of Religion,' drawn up ' and signed by two clergy- 
men of the Reformed Church, Megapolensis and Drissius. It is dated at ' Amster- 
dam, in N. Netherland,' the 5th of August, 1657, and is addressed to the ' Classis of 
Amsterdam.' They report Long Island religion as in a sad condition. 

At ' Gravesend are reported Mennonites ; yea, they, for the most part, reject 
infant baptism, the Sabbath, the office of preacher and the teachers of God's word, 
saying that through these have come all sorts of contention into the world. When- 
ever they come together the one or the other reads something for them. At Flush' 
ing they hitherto had a Presbyterian preacher who conformed to our Church, 
but many of them became endowed with divers opinions. . . . They absented 
themselves from preaching, nor would they pay the preacher his promised stipend. 
The said preacher was obliged to leave the place and repair to the English Vir- 
ginias. . . . Last year a fomenter of evil came there. He was a cobbler from 
Rhode Island, in New England, and stated that lie was commissioned by Christ. 
He began to preach at Flushing and then went with the people into the river and 
dipped them. This becoming known here, the fiscaal proceeded thither and brought 
him along. He was banished the province.' 10 

The same paper states that at Middleburg (now Newtown) and at 'Heemstede' 
there were a number of people who were willing to listen to the preaching of Richard 
Denton at the Dutch Church : ' When he began to baptize the children of such 
parents as were not members of the Church they sometimes burst out of the church.' 

' The cobbler,' a mere term of contempt, who ' dipped ' his converts at Flush- 
ing ' last year,' that is, in 1656, was Rev. William Wickenden, of Providence. He 
was one of the first settlers of that city, resided there in 1636, signed the first com- 
pact in 1637, was a member of the Legislature in 1648, and from 1651 to 1655, again 
1664, and died in 1669. In 1656 he visited Flushing, preached, immersed his con- 
verts in the river, and administered the Lord's Supper. Both Broadhead and 
O'Callagan give a full account of his treatment in consequence. Under date of 
November 8th, 1656, O'Callagan says : 'The Baptists at Flushing were the next to 
feel the wrath of the law. William Hallett, sheriff of that place, " had dared to 
collect conventicles in his house, and to permit one William Wickendam [properly 
Wickenden] to explain and comment on God's Holy Word, and to administer sacra- 
ments, though not called thereto by any civil or clerical authority." He had, more- 
over, assisted at such meeting and afterward " accepted from the said Wickendam's 
hands the bread in the form and manner the Lord's Supper is usually celebrated." 
For this violation of the statute Hallett was removed from office and fined fifty 



PREACHING AND BAPTIZING IN NEW YORK. 369 

pounds, failing to pay which he was to be banished.' n On the 8th of November, 
1656, the General Assembly of New Netherland ' ordained ' that Wickenden 
should be condemned to pay a fine of one hundred pounds Flemish and be banished 
out of the province of New Netherland, ' the aforesaid Wickendam to remain a pris- 
oner till the fine and cost of the process shall be paid.' 

The Council being informed, however, by reliable parties, that he was a very 
poor man, ' with a wife and many children, by profession a cobbler, which trade he 
neglects, so that it will be impossible to collect anything from him,' the fine and 
costs were remitted, and he was condemned on the 11th of November ' to imme- 
diate banishment, under condition that if ever he be seen again in the province of 
New Netherland he shall be arrested and kept in confinement till the fine and costs 
are paid in full.' 12 Like other religious tyrants, the more the Dutch authorities 
persecuted the heretics the worse off they found themselves, and the more indig- 
nant they became. Hence, on September 21st, 1662, they say that because they 

' Find by experience that their hitherto issued publications and edicts against 
conventicles and prohibited assemblies are not observed and obeyed as they ought, 
therefore, by these presents, they are not only renewed but enlarged in manner fol- 
lowing. Like as they have clone heretofore, so they prohibit and interdict as yet, 
that besides the Reformed worship and service no conventicles or meetings shall 
be kept in this province, whether it be in houses, barns, ships, barks, nor in the 
woods nor fields, upon forfeiture of fifty guldens for the first time, for every per- 
son, whether man or woman or child that shall have been present at such prohibited 
meetings, and twice as much for every person, whether it be man or woman or 
child, that has exhorted or taught in such prohibited meetings, or shall have lent 
his house, barn, or any place to that purpose ; for y e second time twice as much, 
for the third time four times as much, and arbitrary punishment besides.' 13 

A further provision prohibited the importation, circulation or reception of any 
books, writings or letters, deemed ' erroneous," fining the importers and circulators 
a hundred gulden, and the receivers fifty gulden. From this time onward there 
are numerous indications that many individual Baptists were found around Graves- 
end, Newtown and Flushing, and some signs that now and then one of the Men- 
nonites from Long Island had crossed the river into what are now New York and 
Westchester Counties, but it is not likely that they had any visible Church existence. 

The next trace of Baptist life that we find in New York came also from the 
East. Nicholas Eyers, supposed to have been a native-born citizen, a brewer, residing 
' in the broad street of this city, between the house of John Michel Eyers and Mr. 
John Spratt,' invited Valentine "vVightman, of Groton, Conn., to come and preach 
in his house. Eyers shows in his petition to the Governor that in February, 1715, 
his house had been registered by the Quarter Sessions ' for an Anabaptist meeting- 
house,' and ' that he had been a public preacher to a Baptist congregation within 
this city for four years.' There is a perplexity of dates here, as between 1711, 
when he is said to have been a Baptist preacher, and 1714, when his name appears 
in the list of the baptized, which the writer sees no way of reconciling without fur- 



370 FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, NEW YORK. 

ther data. In 1711 or 1712 Wightman began a series of preaching visits, continuing 
them for about two years, and in 1714 he baptized Nicholas Eyers and eleven others. 
At first it was resolved that for fear of the rabble these twelve converts should be 
baptized in the night and the company went to the river, where the five females 
received the ordinance. At that point Mr. Eyers was seized with the conviction 
that they were doing wrong in shunning publicity. He remembered the words of 
our Lord's brethren : ' No man doeth any thing in secret, when he himself seeketh to 
be known openly.' He, therefore, consulted with the other six brethren and they 
agreed to postpone their baptism till morning. The next day they waited on Bur- 
net, the Governor, with a request for protection ; this he not only gave them but 
went to the river side with many of the most respectable citizens to witness the 
ordinance. All stood reverently, and at its close the Governor remarked : ' This 
was the ancient manner of baptizing, and is, in my opinion, much preferable to the 
practice of modern times.' In 1715 the Quarter Sessions licensed Eyers' house for 
a Baptist meeting place. On January 1, 1720, he seems to have hired another 
place of meeting, and he asked the Governor to permit him to exercise the 
functions ' of a minister within this city to a Baptist congregation and to give 
him protection therein,' under the Act of Toleration. Rip Van Dam, ' one of 
His Majesty's Council for the Province of New York,' had rented this place to 
Eyers, ' only to be a publick meeting place of the Baptists wherein to worship Al- 
mighty God.' On the 13th of the same month the Mayor, Recorder and Aldermen 
certified ' that to the best of our knowledge and understanding he is blameless and 
free from any notorious and public slander and vice, has given himself the good 
name and reputation of his neighbors of being a sober, just and honest man, and is 
said to be an Anabaptist as to his profession in religion.' January 23d, 1721, Gov- 
ernor Burnet gave him a permit to preach under the laws of William and Mary. 
This curious document begins thus : ' "Whereas, Mr. Nich. Eyers, brewer, a freeman 
and inhabitant of y e City of New York, pretending to be at present a teacher or 
preacher of a congregation of Anabaptists, which has had its beginning about five 
years ago within this city and has so continued hitherto.' 14 

This date implies that the congregation had taken a somewhat settled form in 
1715, but Parkinson states that the Church was not constituted nor Eyers ordained 
till September, 1724, when Elders Valentine Wightman, of Groton, and Daniel 
Wightman, of Newport, conducted the services. This Church was so prospered 
that they bought a piece of ground on ' Golden Hill ' and built a meeting-house in 
1728. A map made from a survey by Wm. Bradford, dated 1728, shows that 
' Golden Hill ' took its rise at Queen Street (now Pearl) and continued up John 
Street to William, and also shows this meeting-house to have been located on the 
west side of Cliff, a little north of the north-west corner of Cliff, apparently on the 
property now occupied by Messrs. Phelps, Dodge, & Co. Benedict says that he 
found a letter amongst the papers of Backus, addressed by Elder James Brown to 



BLOCK ISLAND BAPTISTS. 371 

his Church in Providence, asking aid toward paying the debt on this church edifice, 
which had cost a considerable sum. He stated that the Rhode Island brethren had 
helped them the year before, but that the wealthiest member of the New York 
Church having left them, and the rest being poor, they were unable to discharge 
their debt. Mr. Brown thought that £25 or £30 would be the just proportion of 
the Church in Providence, and he subscribed £1 thereof. A number of others 
gave ' thirteen barrels of cider.'' Between the brewer of New York and the cider- 
mills of Providence they were bound to float that church building on Golden Hill; 
yet the plan would not work. Eyers removed to Newport in 1731, where he died, 
and John Stephens took his place in New York. But he soon removed to South 
Carolina. Then one of the trustees claimed the church building and sold it as pri- 
vate property, Avhen the Church, which had existed about eight years and consisted 
of twenty-four members, disbanded. This closed the history of the first General 
Baptist Church in New York city. 

That which is now the First Baptist Church in that city was organized on 
June 10th, 1762, and under most interesting circumstances, especially interesting 
because its history is indirectly connected with Roger Williams through Long- 
Island and Block Island. In 1661 a company of sixteen Baptist emigrants from 
England, who found that they could not enjoy religious liberty in Massachusetts, 
united in purchasing Block Island and settled there. They soon applied to 
Roger Williams and John Clarke for aid and counsel, and through their influence, 
in 1663, Block Island was admitted to share the privileges of the charter which 
Rhode Island had secured from Charles II. In 1661 a deputation was sent from 
Block Island to the General Assembly of Rhode Island to ask for civil protec- 
tion. Their request was referred to a committee, of which Roger Williams was 
chairman, who reported, that as his majesty had granted in the charter : that no 
person within the said colony at any time hereafter shall be in any way molested, 
punished, disquieted, or called in question for any difference in opinion in matters 
of religion, and do not actually disturb the civil peace of the said colony,' the peo- 
ple of Block Island were entitled to the same rights. The islanders, therefore, or- 
ganized a miniature democracy for local civil government, and, in 1665, sent their 
first representatives to the Rhode Island General Court. In civil polity it adopted 
the principles of Roger Williams, and in the exercise of its religious freedom it in- 
troduced worship after the order observed by Baptists. The sixteen original pro- 
prietors set apart a portion of land to be known as the Ministers' Lot, for the main- 
tenance of that worship. 

James Sands, one of the first settlers and the first representative from Block 
Island in the Rhode Island Assembly, was an ' Anabaptist,' and Niles, his grandson, 
the historian of the Island, says that • he did not differ in religious belief from the 
other settlers.' For about ninety years lay preachers, taken from amongst them- 
selves, continued regular worship after the Baptist order, and without the formal 



372 ANOTHER CHURCH IN NEW TORE. 

organization of a Church. Until that time they met in each other's houses, but then 
they built a meeting-house, and from that period to this they have built seven in 
succession. In 1759 they engaged Rev. David Sprague to preach for them : ' So 
long as said Sprague shall serve the inhabitants of the town by preaching to them 
the Gospel of Christ according to the Scriptures of truth, making them and 
them only the rule of his faith, doctrine and practice.' A Baptist Church was 
organized on Block Island October 3d, 1772, with Elder Sprague as pastor and 
Thomas Dodge as deacon. They adopted the ordinary articles of faith used at that 
time, that on the ordinances being the ninth and reading thus : ' We believe that 
baptism and the Lord's Supper are ordinances of Christ to be continued in his 
Church and practiced by believers, after his own example and in obedience to his 
commandments, until his second coming, and that the former is requisite to the 
latter.' From that day there has been a Baptist Church on the island, and none 
other ; and now, out of a resident population of about 1,500 the Baptists number 
fully 500 members in communion. Livermore, a late historian, says that 

' In no part of the world, perhaps, has religious freedom been maintained so 
purely for two hundred years as on Block Island. Here it has never been disturbed 
by any civil enactments. Here no ecclesiastical authority has ever infringed upon 
private opinions of religious faith and practice. Here the Church has never felt 
the overruling power of bishops or synod. Here no religious duties have been en- 
forced upon helpless infants. Plere the ordinances have ever been administered in 
their primitive simplicity. Here the acts of sprinkling, pouring and signing with 
the cross have never been witnessed. Here the minister has no more ruling author- 
ity in the Church than the youngest member. No authority is recognized in it ex- 
cept that which comes from the Scriptures.' 15 

Twelve years after the organization of this Church Thomas Dodge became its 
pastor, and some of the best families in New England have sprung from this settle- 
ment, especially the descendants of the Sands, Ray, Terry, Rathbone, Dodge and 
Niles. Roger "Williams was deeply concerned in the welfare of this little repub- 
lic, was intimate with its early settlers, and Simon Ray, Jr., married his grand- 
daughter. Thomas Dodge, grandson of Tristram Dodge, one of the original settlers 
of Block Island, settled at Cow Neck, Long Island, about 1705-10, and was 
soon followed by Samuel, another grandson. Thomas, it is supposed, built the old 
homestead still found on Dodge Pond, and from there the family spread to Cow 
Bay, where we find Dodge Island, near to Sands Point, named after John Sands, 
who was one of Elder Sands' family from Block Island. Jeremiah Dodge, a great- 
grandson of the original Tristram, was born at Cow Neck, May, 1716 ; he was a ship- 
builder, having learned his trade from his brother, Wilkie. He removed to New York 
to follow his business not far from the years 1737-40, and died there in 1800. He 
brought the old Baptist principles of the family with him, and in 1745 we find the 
few scattered Baptists of New York meeting in his house and that of Joseph 
Meeks for prayer-meetings, Dodge and Dr. Robert North, a former member of the 
disbanded Church, being the leaders of the little congregation. 16 



REV. JOHN GANO. 373 

Joseph Meeks was converted in 1745, and Elder Benjamin Miller, of Scotch 
Plains, N. J., came to New York to baptize him. Soon John Pyne, a licentiate liv- 
ing at Fishkill, was invited to come to their help. In 1750 Mr. Pyne died, and Elder 
James Carman, of Cranberry, near Hightstown, 1ST. J., visited them and baptized sev- 
eral. They numbered thirteen members in 1753, and became a branch of the Scotch 
Plains Church. Mr. Miller came to break bread to them once in three months. Their 
numbers increased so rapidly that they were obliged to hire a room to contain the 
congregation. In Avhat is now called William Street (between Fulton and John) 
there was a rigging-loft, on which hung a large sign of a horse and cart, from 
which the street was known as Cart-and-Horse Lane. Here they met from three 
to four years, when its owner sold it and they returned to Mr. Meeks' house, where 
they met about a year longer. They then purchased ground and built the second 
Baptist meeting-house on Golden Hill, and entered it in March, 1760. A map in 
Valentine's Manuals shows the location of this building to have been in Gold Street, 
on the west side, just south of the south-west corner of what is now Fulton. Their 
membership having increased to twenty-seven, they took their letters from Scotch 
Plains and, with the assistance of Benjamin Miller and John Gano, were consti- 
tuted a Church in 1762, adopting the London Confession of 1688. On the same 
day they elected Mr. Gano their pastor. As he was one of the first men of his 
times a brief sketch of his life may be necessary here. 

John Gano was a direct descendant of the Huguenots of France, his grand- 
father, Francis, being obliged to fly from persecution in the Isle of Guernsey in 
consequence of the bloody edict revoking the Edict of Nantz. He settled in 
New Rochelle, in the State of New York. His son, Daniel, lived at Hopewell, 
N. J., and was the father of John, who was born at Hopewell, July 22d, 1727. 
While quite young John united with the Baptist Church there, and was ordained 
by that body May 29th, 1754, Isaac Eaton preaching the sermon. Before his ordina- 
tion he had gone with Mr. Miller and Mr. Thomas on a tour into Virginia, and 
while there had followed what he believed to be a divine impulse to preach. On 
returning, his Church called him to account for such disorder, but before proceeding 
to condemn him, asked him to preach before them, hence his ordination; and at the 
next meeting of the Philadelphia Association he was sent on a mission to the South. 
There he traveled extensively as far as South Carolina. While in the back settlements 
of Virginia he lodged with a family and overheard one of them say : ' This man talks 
like one of the Joneses.' On inquiry he was told that they were a family living over 
twenty miles thence who did nothing but pray and talk about Jesus Christ. He 
said : ' I determined to make it my next day's ride and see my own likeness? He 
found a large family, many of whom had been lately converted, engaged in wor- 
ship. The sick father was lying before the fire groaning with pain, and Gano asked 
him how he did ? He replied : ' Oh ! I am in great pain.' ' I am glad of it,' said 
the young preacher. The old man demanded with spirit what he meant. He 



374 GANO PREACHES TO WHITEFIELI). 

answered : ' Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,' and the sick man fell in 
love with him. 

On reaching North Carolina, in company with another young man, they ar- 
rived at a plantation where they were invited to stay all night. The planter asked 
him ' if he was a trader,' to which he answered ' yes.' He then asked him how he 
succeeded. Gano replied, not so well as he wished. Probably the goods did not 
suit. The preacher said that no one had complained of that. The planter sug- 
gested that he might be holding his goods too high, to which his friend replied that 
any one might have them below their own price. The man said that he would 
trade on these terms. Gano then asked him : ' If gold tried in the fire, yea, that 
which was better than the fine gold, wine and milk, durable riches and righteousness, 
without money and without price, would suit him ? ' ' O,' said the planter, ' I be- 
lieve you are a minister,' and then he declared to him the freeness and fullness of 
grace. 

On arriving at Charleston, he preached there for Mr. Hart ; and in his account 
of the services Mr. Gano writes : ' When I arose to speak, the sight of so brilliant 
an audience, among whom were twelve ministers and one of whom was Mr. White- 
field, for a moment brought the fear of man upon me ; but, blessed be the Lord ! I 
was soon relieved from this embarrassment. The thought passed my mind, I had 
none to fear and obey but the Lord.' On his return to North Carolina, during the 
French War, he was informed that lie was to be seized as a spy ; but when he reached 
the place, instead of passing through secretly, he stopped at the public house and 
asked the landlord whether the people would come to hear a sermon on a week-day. 
The man replied that shortly there was to be a general muster there for the county, 
and Gano sent to the colonel who was to arrest him, to know if it would be pleasant 
to him to have a short sermon addressed to the regiment before military duty. 
They all paid profound attention but one man, to whom Gano said that he was ashamed 
of him and wondered that his officers would bear with him. The colonel thanked 
the preacher, rebuked the man, and the evangelist pushed on his way. On reaching 
the Blue Ridge he entered a house in a storm, the owner of which was alarmed and 
asked him if he was ' a press-master.' He replied that he was. In great alarm the 
man wished to know whether he ' took married men.' Gano told him that he surely 
did, that his Master's service was good, with high wages, and he wanted his wife 
and children to enlist also. The man was very uneasy, however, while he was ex- 
horted to volunteer for Christ. On reaching New Jersey he first settled at Morris- 
town for two years, and then at Yadkin, N. C, whence he was obliged to flee before 
the Cherokee Indians in the i-avages of war. Shortly after this he took the New 
York pastorate, in which he remained five and twenty years with the most marked 
success, when he removed to Kentucky, where he died at Frankfort in 1804. We 
shall meet him again in the Revolutionary War. It is but needful to add here that 
he was one of the most remarkable men in America in all the resources which 



FIR8T CHURCH DURING THE WAR. 375 

native strength, sound judgment, wit, ingenuity, retentive memory, zeal and godliness 
furnish in times which try men's souls. 

The First Church prospered so largely under Mr. Gano's ministry that the 
meeting-house was enlarged in 1763 ; crowds flocked to hear him. The late Dr. 
Bowen, of the Episcopal Church in New York, says that his father, who was a 
clergyman in the city in those days, told him that ' Mr. Gano possessed the best 
pulpit talents of any man that he ever heard.' Till 1763 this Church numbered only 
forty-one members, and two years before that it was scarcely known at all, although 
the little meeting-house had been built. Morgan Edwards came from "Wales in 
1761, and tells this pleasant anecdote : 

' "When I came to New York I landed in the morning and thought I would try 
if I could find any Baptists. I wandered up and down, looking at the place and 
the people, and wondering who of all the people I met might be Baptists. At 
length I saw an old man, with a red cap on his head, sitting in the porch of a respect- 
able looking house. Ah, thought I, now this is one of the old inhabitants who 
knows all about the city ; this is the man to inquire of. I approached him and said : 
"Good-morning, sir! Can you tell me where any Baptists live in this city?"' 
" Baptists ! Baptists ! " said the old man, musing as if ransacking all the corners of 
his memory ; " Baptists ! I really don't know as I ever heard of any body of that 
occupation in these parts." ' 

During the Revolutionary "War the First Church was dispersed and its records 
suspended. No baptisms are recorded between that of Hannah Stillwell, April 
28th, 1776, and that of Samuel Jones, afterward a deacon, on September 4th, 1781. 
The British forces occupied New York above seven years, during which time it was 
nearly ruined. No city in America was so long in the hands of the enemy and 
suffered so much. Its best inhabitants found shelter in other colonies, and the To- 
ries made it their place of refuge. Pestilence and two great fires swept it, and the 
soldiery inflicted all 'the damage that they could. At the opening of the war 
there were nineteen churches in the city, but when it closed only nine of them 
could be used for worship. The Baptist meeting-house, having been used for a 
horse-stable, was almost in ruins. On his return to the city Gano found emptiness, 
desolation and ashes. The angels of God had not looked upon a more touching 
procession since that which united Calvary with Joseph's tomb, than that which 
solemnly moved into the wasted city from Harlem Heights. "Washington and 
Clinton led it on horseback, followed by Knox with the remnant of the patriot 
army, some mounted and some on foot, with gaunt cheeks, weather-beaten, foot- 
sore and ragged, scarred and limping. Men who had left their bloody foot-prints 
upon the sharp frozen snows of Valley Forge were there, with the man at their head 
who had shivered with them through the dreariest winter of the war ; the man 
who had carried them to God in prayer, night and morning, when anguish sat 
heavily on his camp and his own soul was struggling through the darkest days of 
life. John Gano soon followed and says : ' "We collected of our Church about 



376 NEW CHURCHES FORMED. 

thirty-seven members out of upward of two hundred, some being dead, and others 
scattered into almost every part of the Union.' But as soon as the sanctuary could 
be decently cleansed, lie rallied his people and preached to them from Hag. ii, 3 : 
' Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory ? and how do ye 
see it now ? ' Under his ministry the days of prosperity soon returned until he 
baptized his last convert April' 5th, 1788, and left for Kentucky. During his 
pastorate he had baptized into the Church 297, and received 23 by letter. Amongst 
the first Regents of the University of New York we find the name of this heroic 
man, with this notice : ' Rev. John Gano, a clerical scholar of rare culture, pastor 
of the infant Baptist Church for sixteen years prior to the war; had been a chaplain 
in the army, and upon returning to the city with the establishment of peace, could 
find but thirty-seven out of his two hundred Church members.' 17 His family raised 
a beautiful monument to his memory in Cincinnati. An altar-like pedestal bears an 
obelisk of much grace, with deep niches on each side. In every one of these there 
is an allegorical figure, while angels and rich wreaths of flowers adorn the various 
parts, the whole being crowned by an elaborate capital and a lambent urn. In the 
basso-relievo a shattered sepulcher is seen, from which a family has risen from the 
dead. Six years were spent in executing this delicate piece of workmanship. 

Time fails to trace the remarkable history of this venerable Church through the 
striking ministry of Dr. Foster and William Collier to the close of the century. 
Shortly after Gano left, the question of singing disturbed them. The usage had pre- 
vailed of lining the verses of hymns sung, and now many wanted to sing from the 
books, whereupon fourteen persons, who wanted the hymns ' deaconed,' left and 
started the Second Baptist Church. 1790 this new Church got into a contention and 
divided, both parties claiming this name, but after a time they both dropped it, one 
taking the name of Bethel and the other of Fayette Street. The Bethel ceased to 
exist many years ago, but the Fayette Street had an illustrious history, first as the 
Oliver Street, and is now a noble body, known as the Baptist Church of the Epiph- 
any, with Dr. Elder as pastor. Dr. Foster became pastor of the First Church in 
1788, and before long some of the members, who could scent heresy from afar, dis- 
covered heterodoxy in his sermons. A serious disturbance followed, which resulted 
in the exclusion of thirteen persons in 1789. In 1790 twenty others took letters 
of dismission and the Second Church received the excluded, which fact probably 
fermented their own contentions and led to their division. The New York Baptist 
Association was formed in 1791, comprising the Scotch Plains, Oyster Bay, Morris- 
town, Connoe-Brook [Northfield], Staten Island, with the First and Second New 
York Churches. So rapidly and noiselessly did the leaven of our principles and 
practices spread that, by the close of the century, Churches were planted in seven- 
teen counties of New York, extending from Sag Harbor to the New Jersey line, 
and from Staten Island to the Canada line. In 1791, according to Asplund, the 
churches numbered 84, the ministers 109, and the members 5,263. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE BAPTISTS OF NORTH CAROLINA, MARYLAND, NEW HAMP- 
« SHIRE, VERMONT AND GEORGIA. 

STILL following the chronological order, we note the rise of Baptists in these 
several colonies. We have seen that individual Baptists from Virginia were 
found in North Carolina in the middle of the seventeenth century ; but the Shiloh 
Church, formed by Paul Palmer in Camden County, on the Chowan River, in 1727, 
was the first Church founded in that colony. Palmer was from the Welsh Tract, in 
Delaware, and was a correspondent of John Comer, according to whose Journal this 
Church numbered thirty-two members in 1729. Joseph Parker, probably one of 
Palmer's converts, formed the second Church, at Meherriu, in 1729 ; but it was not 
until 1710 that the third was formed, at Sandy Run, by members dismissed from 
the Meherrin Church. Emigrants from Virginia, in comjDany with William So- 
journer, formed the fourth Church, in Llalifax County, in 1712 ; and in 1752 these 
had increased to sixteen Churches, all being General Baptists. 

They were not thoroughly spiritual Churches. They held to the scriptural 
authority of the ordinances of Baptism and the Supper, but some of them did not 
demand faith and conversion before receiving these, and they added to them, as of 
about equal authority, the rites of love-feasts, laying on of hands after baptism, wash- 
ing of feet, anointing the sick, the right hand of fellowship, the kiss of charity, and 
the public devoting of children without christening, or what John Leland called 
' dry christening.' This state of things existed when that region of country was 
visited by Robert Williams, of South Carolina; Benjamin Miller, Peter P. Vanhorn, 
and John Gano, of New Jersey ; with Shubael Stearnes, of Virginia. Then God 
raised up a spiritual people who accepted the whole truth. It is remarkable to see 
what a missionary spirit pervaded our American Churches from the very first, 
especially put forth in practical efforts to take the Gospel into the new settlements. 
This subject is too interesting and vital to pass in silence, for the journey of a Bap- 
tist missionary meant the personal visitation of the scattered pioneers, who had gone 
to make homes for themselves in the wilderness. These men of God gathered the 
families in the region round about, preached to them, and frequently found mem- 
bers from the older settlements who, far away from the helps and restraints of 
Christian fellowship, had become careless about their religious life. The godless 
were led to Christ, the careless were reanimated by the missionary's earnest appeals, 
those who believed were baptized, frequently the whole community was moved 



378 OPEN-AIR MEETINGS IN NORTH CAROLINA. 

religiously, and often a Baptist Church was organized. A second visit commonly 
resulted in the settlement of a pastor and the establishment of a branch Church in 
some adjacent neighborhood. 

The South was particularly favored by such labors. Such men as William 
Tristoe, Abraham Marshall, Oliver Hort and Richard Furman caught much of the 
primitive, apostolic zeal and entered with all their powers into this work. An 
unknown correspondent of 'Eippon's Register' gives us a glimpse of such toils, in 
a letter of August 24th, 1790. He writes : * 

' In several counties of North Carolina I have preached to very numerous 
assemblies. At a " big meeting," as they call a convention, or when a stranger of 
any note visits them, it is seldom that the place of worship will contain half the con- 
gregation. If they have timely notice, hundreds think nothing of a distance of ten 
or twenty miles to meeting. Every one has a horse, yes, even our poorest people 
have a horse to ride, and hence, when you arrive at the place appointed, you will 
see more horses tied all about the roads than can be seen at a fair in England, my 
native country. A stage, also, is erected, which you stand on to preach, and some- 
times to two or three thousand hearers. I have preached, as was supposed, to three 
or four thousand. The meeting continues two or three days. There are frequently 
ten or a dozen ministers present, most of whom pray, preach, or exhort, as they find 
freedom. After the public service, those who live near the place of meeting, 
whether members or not, ask every person who comes from a distance to go home 
with them ; and generally the greater the number who accept the invitation the 
better are they pleased, especially if a minister can be prevailed upon to be one of 
the guests. When you come to the house, they entertain you with the very best 
they have, both horses and men, and as soon as you have all dined, to preaching, 
praying, exhortation, etc. Near midnight you retire to rest ; .by sunrise in the 
morning, to prayers ; then breakfast, and to public worship again, but not before 
your company is requested for the next night, if the meeting continues. This is the 
common practice in Georgia, South and North Carolina, in what we call the back part 
of the country. To a great many of these meetings I have been, and sometimes 
have seen a great deal of religion, and enjoyed the most solemn pleasures and com- 
fortable opportunities I have ever had.' 

The West and North-west in those days meant Central and Western New York, 
but there, many of these inspiring features of large and enthusiastic meetings were 
lacking. The journeys were often long and perilous, attended with much hardship. 
Then, sometimes, these godly men were not welcomed, and they found it necessary 
to shake off the dust of their feet against American settlements as Christ's Apostles 
did against the towns of Palestine. The missionaries were generally volunteers, but 
sometimes the Associations commissioned them. Messengers from the South 
appealed to the Philadelphia Association, in 4754, for the labors of a missionary, and 
they sent John Gano, who traveled as far as Charleston. Hon. C. S. Todd, for- 
merly the American Representative to Russia, draws this picture of Gano : 

' He was, in person, below the middle stature, and when young, of a slender 
form, but of a firm, vigorous constitution, well fitted for performing active services 
with ease, and for suffering labors and privations with constancy. . . . His pres- 
ence was manly, open, and engaging. His voice strong and commanding, yet agree- 



MARYLAND BAPTISTS. 379 

able and capable of all those inflections which are suitable to express either the 
strong or tender emotions of an intelligent, feeling mind. In mental endowments 
and acquired abilities he appeared highly respectable ; with clear conception and 
ready discernment, he formed readily a correct judgment of men and things. His 
acquaintance with the learned languages and sciences did not commence till he 
arrived at manhood, and was obtained chiefly by private instruction. To the refine- 
ment of learning he did not aspire ; his chief object was such a competent acquaint- 
ance with its principles as would enable him to apply them with advantage to pur- 
poses of general usefulness in religion, and to the most important interests of society ; 
and to this he attained.' 

Thus endowed and armed, this holy man and his brethren of like spirit went 
to the Sandy Creek region in North Carolina. An Association was formed there 
in 1758, a monument to their fruitful labor, and by 1766 the Sandy Creek Church 
had aided in forming forty -two Churches. The Little River Church was another 
remarkable body. Formed in 1760, it increased to five hundred persons in three 
years and built five meeting-houses. These Churches had many contentions and 
alienations as Regulars and Separates for years ; but these passed away when they 
became a thoroughly working people ; they were too busy to quarrel, and now 
there is not a more efficient body of Baptists in the United States than those of 
North Carolina. Some of the mightiest names in our history have arisen in that 
State. Silas and Jesse Mercer, William T. Brantly, Basil Manly and a long line 
following, as Kerr and Howell, Poindexter and Mims, Brooks and Saunders, 
Emerson and Solomon, with a host of living men who would honor any Christian 
'community. As far back as 1793, Asplund reports that they had 112 churches, 172 
ministers, and 8,017 communicants. But in 1886, they have 2,177 churches, 915 
ministers, and 211,981 communicants. 

Maryland. The question of religious liberty in this colony will be noticed in 
another place. For the present it is only needful to note that in 1649 the Assem- 
bly enacted : 

' That no persons professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall be molested in 
respect of their religion, or the free exercise thereof, or be compelled to the belief 
or practice of any other religion, against their consent, so that they be not unfaith- 
ful to the proprietary, or conspire against the civil .government. That persons 
molesting any other in respect of his religious tenets shall pay treble damages to the 
party aggrieved and twenty shillings to the proprietary. That the reproaching any 
with opprobrious epithets of religious distinctions shall forfeit ten shillings to the 
person aggrieved. That any one speaking reproachfully against the Blessed Virgin 
or the Apostles shall forfeit five pounds, but blasphemy against God shall be pun- 
ished with death.' 1 

When the first Baptist Church was founded in Maryland, it was a Roman Cath- 
olic colony, but our brethren were not persecuted in the proper sense of the term, 
although their protest against Rome was very strong. Henry Sator, an English Gen- 
eral Baptist, appears to have formed the first Baptist Church in the colony, at Chestnut 
Ridge, near Baltimore, in 1742. Four years afterward it numbered 181 members, 



380 



REV. DR. FULLER. 



and, though feeble, it continues until this time. In 1754 it supplied members to form 
the Winter Kun Church, in Harford County, and this, in turn, dismissed eleven 
members in 1785 to form the First Church in Baltimore. This last body has been 
greatly blessed, is now surrounded by many strong Churches, and has enjoyed the 
pastoral care of Dr. Williams for thirty-six years. The Waverly, Seventh and Lee 
Street Churches are all offshoots from the First. The Seventh is the Church served 
so long and successfully by the late Dr. Richard Fuller before he formed the 
Eutaw Place Church. His successor in the Seventh Church was that lovely spirit, 
Dr. W. T. Brantly. From the first, Baptist growth has been very slow in Maryland. 

It contained only 17 churches, 13 
ministers and 920 members in 
1793 ; to-day it has 56 churches, 
40 ministers, and 12,162 members. 
The Accomack Association of Vir- 
ginia, however, was set off from 
the Salisbury in 1808. 

There is no name which the 
Maryland Baptists more delight to 
honor than that of Rev. Richard 
Fuller, D.D. He was born at 
Beaufort, S. C, April 22d, 1804, 
and was prepared to enter Harvard 
College by Rev. Dr. Brantly, but 
broken health compelled him to 
leave that institution when in his 
junior year. Able to return after 
an absence of five years, he was 
graduated in 1824 at the head of 
his class. He then studied law 
and rose to eminence in his pro- 
fession. In 1831 he was converted at Beaufort, and says: 'My soul ran over with 
love and joy and praise ; for days I could neither eat nor sleep.' He was baptized 
by Rev. H. O. Wyer, of Savannah, and united with the Baptist Church in his native 
place. He was soon chosen its pastor, was ordained in 1832 and labored in this field 
for fifteen years. When he left his lucrative law business to enter the ministry the 
Church was feeble, but under his faithful care it increased to about 200 white per- 
sons and 2,400 colored. His zeal was so great that he preached for weeks together 
in various parts of the South, and great numbers were brought to Christ. But in 
1836 he was obliged to travel in Europe for his health. In 1847 he became pastor 
of the Seventh Baptist Church in Baltimore, a Church which numbered but 87 
members at that time. Under his faithful toils it grew to the number of 1,200, 




RICHARD FULLER, D.D. 



HIS STUDY AND PULPIT. 381 

and a body of its members retired with him to establish the new congregation, in 
which he remained live years, and from which, after much suffering, he was called 
to his reward on high, on the 20th of October, 1876. 

As a preacher Dr. Fuller was appreciated throughout the nation, for he found 
but one answer to the question, How can a man preach with power \ He believed 
the word of God with all his soul and walked with its Author continually. His 
might lay where his heart was, in his holy breathings after the Holy Spirit. Richard 
Fuller would have retired from the pulpit in a moment, if the balancing query of 
skepticism had arisen in his mind as to whether the line of Divine Inspiration ran 
here or there through the Book of God. He rested with all his weight on the Bible 
as God's book, and came to his congregations not with every kind of light and idle 
speculation, but fresh with holy ardor from the footstool of that throne from which 
that word had been spoken. To this he added the most painstaking study to ascer- 
tain by every form of help what the Scriptures required him to preach. Aside from 
the dutiful visitation of the sick and sorrowful, and other indispensable duties, his 
mind was bent upon the divine results of the coming Sabbath. Superficial men, who 
are total strangers to the throbbings of soul-agony and the toilsome exertions of 
soul-thought, flippantly attributed his great power to the absence of half a quire of 
paper from his pulpit, and prated about his being an extempore preacher. But 
neither paper nor its absence ever made preachers of them, simply because they were 
flippant. Dr. Fuller's printed sermons bear the attestation of noon-tide and mid- 
night to the industry of his pen. Each sermon witnesses that it had been curiously 
inwrought in the depth of his soul from Monday morning till Saturday night, and, 
when it went with him into the pulpit it was a part of himself, whether the paper 
which contained its words went with him or stayed at home. Hence, no offensive 
froth, fustian, rant, or dilletanteism, found a home in his pulpit. There he found 
nothing unworthy of his crucified Lord and the solicitude of perishing men, because 
he took nothing with him but the worthy. 

He preached like a man of God, who had received from him a majestic per- 
sonal presence, bordering on the imperial. He feared God enough to cultivate his 
voice and manner, framing their management on the best of rules and using them 
with consummate skill. Having a message from the Man of Calvary, he wished to 
deliver it as an accomplished pleader with men, for Jesus' sake. Believing that his 
body belonged to the crucified One, he gave himself no liberty to abuse it by 
injurious food, the use of degrading stimulants, or any other indulgence which 
showed that he despised the gift of God. He placed 1 his great power of fancy, his 
vividness of perception, his methods of clear statement and his heart-pathos upon 
the altar of God's Lamb, and altogether the zeal of God's house consumed him. 
The writer once heard him when he showed himself to be a perfect master in the 
art of oratory, by denouncing the tricks of the orator in preaching. He wove one of 
the most fresh, vivid, and finished pieces of oratorical denunciation against depend- 



382 ANTI-MISSIONISM. 

ence on pulpit oratorical effect, that man could put together. Under this spell he 
held his audience in breathlessness, and when they found a free breathing place men 
grew pale and nodded to their neighbors with a look which plainly said : ' What a 
horrible thing it is to be eloquent in the pulpit ! ' The Dr. did not intend to soar to 
the third heavens on the winds of inspired invective against pulpit eloquence, but he 
did, whether he intended it or not, and when we all returned to the earth with him, 
every man of us was ready to subscribe to the new litany : ' From false doctrine, 
heresy, and eloquence, good Lord deliver us ! ' 

The Sator Church started with a keen zest against the Roman Catholic Commun- 
ion. In what she called her ' solemn league and covenant,' her members bound them- 
selves to ' abhor and oppose ' ' Rome, Pope and popery, with all her antichristian ways,' 
which was all well enough, but it had been much better to have set up a strong de- 
fense against the grinding Antinomian and Anti-mission Pope, which divided and 
crippled the early Baptists of Maryland so sorely. A prairie fire does not desolate 
the plain worse than this blight crippled our people there at one time. In 1836 the 
Baltimore Association was rent asunder by this double curse. That year the Asso- 
ciation met at Black Rock, and those who arrayed themselves against missionary 
movements, Sunday-schools, Bible and other benevolent societies, under the abomi- 
nable pretense that they conflicted with the sovereignty of God in the kingdom of 
Christ, found themselves in a majority. They denounced these institutions as ' cor- 
ruptions which were pouring in like a flood upon the Baptist Church,' and as ' cun- 
ningly devised fables.' Then they resolved that the Association could not hold fel- 
lowship with such Churches as united with such societies and encouraged others to do 
so, and dropped all these Churches from their minutes. Of course, the efforts of a 
few aggressive brethren were neutralized, and for a time all missionary work was 
suspended, lest the Churches should be doing the Lord's work instead of their 
own. Instead of being left free to spread the Gospel, the faithful minority found 
their hands full to resist this mad tide of ultra-Calvinism, and in a small degree its 
influence is felt there to this day. Yet, as if to illustrate the truth that ex- 
tremes meet and embrace, it is true that some of the most wise and zealous advo- 
cates of missionary work amongst Baptists have sprung from the bosom of our 
Maryland Churches. Amongst them we find Noah Davis, the real founder of the 
Publication Society, and Benjamin Griffith, its great Secretary; William Crane, 
William Cary Crane, Bartholomew T. Welch, Franklin Wilson, and the present 
Baptist leaders there generally, who love missionary work as they love their lives. 
The very repression which they were obliged to oppose with all their might has 
only increased the intensity of these missionary advocates and supporters, and so 
the valiant little band of Baptists in Maryland are not a whit behind their sister 
Churches elsewhere in their sacrifices for Christ. 

New Hampshire. Massachusetts claimed jurisdiction over New Hampshire in 
1652, and it remained under that jurisdiction until 1679 ; but when the separation 



MBS. SCAMMON. 383 

took place, New Hampshire retained the law which compelled all to support the 
Congregational Churches by public tax. The first unquestionable Baptist of that 
colony is found in the person of Rachel Scammon. Before her marriage she was a 
Miss Thurber, and lived at Rehoboth, Mass., but removed with her husband to 
Statham, N. II. , in 1720. After entering her new home, she held to her Baptist 
convictions and frequently talked of them to her neighbors, but for forty years 
only one woman embraced her sentiments. This friend went to Boston and was 
immersed by Elder Bound, of the Second Church. Late in life Mrs. Scammon 
found Norcott's work on baptism, and went to Boston to get it printed for cir- 
culation, when the printer told her that he had one hundred copies on hand, which 
she bought and distributed in and around Stratham. She believed that a Baptist 
Church would arise in that place and her faith was honored, but not until after her 
death. Some years before this result of her faithfulness, independent infhiences 
were at work in the small town of Newtown, near Haverhill, Mass., which resulted 
in the establishment of a Baptist Church in that place, as the first in the colony. 
As in some other provinces, the preaching of George Whitefield had much to do 
with the origin of this inception of Baptist life. He had visited Ipswich, New- 
bury and Hampton in the autumn of 1710, and the Congregational Churches in 
that region were all astir, for the Half-way Covenant was in danger. 

In Boston, this Covenant had been a fire-brand from the first, and twenty- 
eight members having seceded in consequence of its adoption formed the Old 
South Church. Many of the Churches of the Standing Order went to such an 
extreme as to vote that : ' Those who wish to offer their children in baptism, join 
with the Church and have a right to all the ordinances and privileges of the 
Church.' 2 Dr. Dexter puts the point clearly in these words : ' Starting with the 
theory that some germ of true faith, in the absence of proof to the contrary, 
must be assumed in a child of the covenant, sufficient to transmit a right of 
baptism to his children, but not sufficient to entitle him to partake of the Lord's 
Supper; not many yeai's passed before the inference was reached that an amount 
of saving faith, even in the germ, which would justify the baptism of a man's 
children, ought to justify his own admission to the table of the Lord.' In 
keeping with this idea, Stoddard, of Northampton, wrote to prove that 'the 
Lord's Supper is instituted to be a means of regeneration,' and that men may 
and ought to receive it, ' though they knew themselves to be in a natural condi- 
tion.' Of course, this state of things in the membership of the Churches was 
succeeded by an unconverted ministry. Right here Whitefield struck his first 
blow. In 1711 he describes his preaching in his New England Journal : ' I in- 
sisted much on the necessity of a new birth, as also on the necessity of a min- 
ister's being converted before he could preach aright. Unconverted ministers are 
the bane of the Christian Church. I think that great and good man, Mr. Stoddard, 

is much to be blamed for endeavoring to prove that unconverted men might be ad- 
27 = F 



3S4 CHURCH AT NEWTON ORGANIZED. 

mitted to the ministry. A sermon lately published by Gilbert Tennent, entitled " The 
Danger of an Unconverted Ministry " I think unanswerable.' 

In this condition of things "Whitefield's preaching startled the community 
about Newtown, where Francis and Abner Chase were converted under his minis- 
try. They desired to hold prayer-meetings in connection with the Congregational 
Church at "West Amesbury, of which they were members. Their minister, Paine 
Wingate, opposed them in this, for he and the neighboring ministers had signed a 
remonstrance, dated December 26th, 1744, against the admission of Whitefield into 
their pulpits. As the Chases could not enjoy the ministry of one whom they 
thought unconverted, they left his ministry and held prayer-meetings in their own 
houses. The records of the Amesbury Church [West Parish] show, that from 1747 
to 1749 Francis Chase was under discipline in that Church ' for greatly neglecting 
the public worship of God.' A committee of the same body also visited Mr. Abner 
Chase in 1749 for ' absenting himself from public worship.'' The reason that he 
gave for doing so was : ' A discord or contention that then was between the Church 
or parish and Mr. "Wingate, as also the Church meeting [treated] Francis Chase, as 
he thought, unhandsomely.' Worth says that Mary Morse, of "West Newbury, 
' after Mrs. Abner Chase, experienced religion when about seven years of age, and 
was baptized when about sixteen. Mr. Francis Chase, of Newton, a member of the 
Congregational Church in Amesbury, was baptized two or three weeks previous. 
These are supposed to have been the first persons ever baptized in the Merrimack, 
which was probably in 1750. It is believed that the administrator was Rev. Mr. 
Hovey, who was afterward settled at Newton.' These and some of the following facts 
are taken from the discourse preached before the New Hampshire Baptist Convention, 
October, 1876, by Rev. "W. H. Eaton, D.D., of Keene, who says in a private note : 
' In the fall and winter of 1871-2 I spent six months in Newton, N. H., preaching 
to the little Church there and spending much time in searching old papers in fami- 
lies that descended from the earliest settlers, also the records of neighboring 
Churches.' 

There is no doubt that the Newtown [now Newton] Church was the first of the 
Baptist order founded in New Hampshire, but there is a dispute as to whether it 
was organized in 1750 or 1755. Backus and others have lixed upon the last of these 
dates. But there is an old manuscript preserved amongst his unpublished papers, 
which appears to throw light upon this point, written by Francis Chase, who was 
one of the constituent members of the Church, for some years its clerk, and toward 
the close of life a deacon in the First Church at Haverhill. Chase writes : ' A brief 
account of the first incorporation of the First Baptist Church and Society in New- 
town, N. H, in the year 1750, January 10th. We increased in number till the 
year 1755. In June 28th Elder Powers was ordained our pastor.' Dr. Eaton says 
that he submitted this document to Dr. Weston, the late editor of Backus's History, 
who gave the opinion as most probable : ' That the history of the Church in New- 



DR. SHEPARD CONVERTED. 385 

ton is analogous to that of the Church in Bellingham ; that it was formed January 
10th, 1750, was weak and had no stated preaching till 1755, when it had become 
strong enough to settle a pastor and let its existence be known ; that Backus, as in 
the case of the Bellingham Church, gives the date of its revival as that of its con- 
stitution, but that its seal as given by the first clerk in his sketch is 1750.' Chase's 
direct statement, with all the collateral evidence, renders this the most likely. No 
records of this Church are found earlier than October 7th, 1767, when the minutes of 
a meeting occur, but they reveal its severe struggle for existence. Two of its mem- 
bers were in the firm grip of the law, and the Church resolved that if one member 
suffered all would suffer with him. It was therefore ' voted ' thus : 

' 1. To carry on Mr. Steward's and Mr. Carter's law-suits, which are now in the 
law on account of rates imposed on them by the Standing Order. 2. To give Mr. 
Hovey for the year ensuing for his labors with us fifty pounds lawful money in such 
things as he wants to live on. 3. That Andrew Whittier, John AVadleigh, and Jo- 
seph Welsh be chosen to say what each man's part shall be of what we promised to 
give Mr. Hovey. 4. That these men shall take the province rate for their rate, and 
do it as light as they can. 5. That these men are to abate such men as they think 
are not able to pay their parts with the rest. 6. That those who will not pay their 
equal proportion according as these men shall tax them, their punishment is this, 
that they shall have no help from lis to clear them from paying rates other where.' 

It is as refreshing as a breeze from their own mountains to find so much hu- 
man 'granite' in this little band of New Hampshire Baptists. They refuse to sup- 
port a State Church by force, and they resolve to support their own chosen pastor 
cheerfully. This suit continued for three years, and must have been very vexatious, 
for at a ' meeting legally named, holden at the Antipedo-Baptist meeting-house,* 
they resolved to 'proportion the whole costs of these suits; to examine the ac- 
count and settle what is honest and right.' Such a Church deserved to live, and it. 
exists to-day. 

At Stratham a young physician, Dr. Shepard, a member of the Congregational 
Church, chanced to be visiting a patient, and taking up Norcott's book he carefully 
read it, became a Baptist and one of the fathers of the denomination. Soon a 
Church was established in that place, and, becoming a minister, he was a burning 
and shining light to the whole colony. The Churches at Madbury and Weare 
appear to have been formed in 1768, but it was not till 1770-71 that our churches 
began to multiply rapidly, when we have Brentwood in 1771, Gilmanton in 1772, 
and a number of others by 1780. The itineracy of Whitefield and others had 
stimulated several men of Cod to visit many destitute places. Amongst the most 
prominent of these was Dr. Hezekiah Smith, of Massachusetts, an able preacher, 
full of zeal. He visited Concord in 1771 and preached there with great power. 
But the Standing Oi'der resented his presence as a daring impertinence which 
threatened the peace of the town, and, in the absence of newspapers, Parson Walker 
advertised him extensively by thundering at him from the pulpit, as much exas- 



386 BR. BALDWIN AND HIS HYMN. 

perated as a farmer could well be to find strange cattle in his corn field. In the 
same year Dr. Smith preached at Nottingham, Brentwood and Stratham, and bap- 
tized thirty-eight persons, amongst whom were Dr. Shepard and Rev. Eliphalet 
Smith, the pastor of a Congregational Church. In Deerfield many were baptized, 
amongst them Joshua Smith, who afterwards became an evangelist of great power. 
Thirteen others were baptized with Pastor E. Smith, and on the same day were or- 
ganized into a Baptist Church at Deerfield. The Brentwood Church was formed in 
1771, and soon spread out into twelve branch Churches, which in 1793 numbered 
413 members, with Dr. Samuel Shepard for their pastor. 

Eight persons from Killingworth, Conn., in 1766, and another band from Wor- 
cester County, Mass., in 1780, settled at Newport, near Croydon. Most of them 
were Baptists, and their settlement was soon known as ' Baptist Hill.' The religious 
destitution of that region of New Hampshire was soon made known to the Warren 
Association, which sent Messrs. Jacobs, Ledoyt, Seamans and Bansom as missiona- 
ries. Ledoyt and Seamans followed the Connecticut River as far as Woodstock, 
preaching mainly on the New Hampshire side, but also on the Vermont side of that 
stream. A Church of eight members was organized at Baptist Hill in May, 1778, 
called the First Church of Newport and Croydon, but was soon after known as the New- 
port Baptist Church. Biel Ledoyt became pastor of this body in 1791, and in 1795 it 
numbered eighty-nine members. Seamans established a Church in New London, of 
which he was pastor, which numbered about one hundred members at the close of 
the century. For years the Newport Church worshiped in a barn by the side of the 
river, which became noted chiefly because Thomas Baldwin the Good, afterwards of 
Boston, preached a most memorable sermon there. At that time he was the pastor 
at Canaan, in New Hampshire. On this great occasion the Assembly was so 
charmed that it was reluctant to leave, and the meeting continued to a late hour in 
the night, but Mr. Baldwin was obliged to return to meet an engagement at home 
in the morning. He mounted his horse, picked his way through the almost track- 
less forest as best he could by the light of the stars, and as he mused over the pre- 
cious meeting in the barn his heart burned, and he began to sing. The words which 
sprang to his lips were those of his union hymn, which have since been sung all over 

the continent : 

'From whence doth this union arise, 
That hatred is conquered by love.' 

Those who love that hymn may be glad to know that it was born at mid- 
night in the New Hampshire wilderness, while its author was alone with God, 
after preaching to his despised Baptist brethren in a barn. This Church built their 
first meeting-house in 1798, a building forty feet square, which Dr. Baron Stow 
describes in 1810. He says : 

' I am in that p/ain edifice, with a superabundance of windows, and a porch at 
each end ; with its elevated pulpit, sky-blue in color, overhung by a sounding-board; 



DB. BARON STOW. 387 

with the deacon's seat half-way up the pulpit ; with the square pews occupied by 
families ; with a gallery containing one row of pews fronted by the singers' seats. 
There is the horse-shed, there is the horse-block ; there are the horses with men's 
saddles and pillions, and a few women's saddles, but not a carriage of any descrip- 
tion. On occasions of baptism the whole congregation would go down the hill, 
and, standing in a deep glen on the banks of Sugar River, would witness the cere- 
monies. Elias McGregor played the bass-viol, Asa, a brother, led the choir, and his 
sisters, Lucy and Lois, sang soprano and alto. In the choir were Asaph Stowe, 
Moses Paine Durkee, Philip W. Kibbey, and more than one of the Wakefields.' 

It was in this church that Baron Stow was converted and baptized, and from it 
he went to the Academy at Newport and the Columbian College, "Washington, whence 
he graduated and was ordained pastor of the Church at Portsmouth, N. H., where he 
served five years before he removed to spend his wonderful life in Boston. He was 
succeeded at Portsmouth by the late Duncan Dunbar, of New York. In 1820 the 
Newport Church introduced the system of supporting itself by assessing a tax 
upon its members, ' in proportion to the invoice of each member of the society, as 
taken by the selectmen.' For years this self-imposed tax wrought only contention 
and it was abandoned. This body was in the Woodstock Association till 1828. when 
the Newport Association was formed, which lias frequently enjoyed the hospitality 
of the old Church. When the Woodstock Association met with it in 1826, a com- 
mittee of four was appointed 'to distribute cake, cheese and cider to the members 
of the Association during the session.' 

These were the beginnings of Baptist history in New Hampshire, from which 
powerful Churches and able ministers of the New Testament sprang in every direc- 
tion. Our people have now increased to six Associations, eighty Churches, and 
8,851 communicants. In consequence of the severity of the New Hampshire cli- 
mate and the limited area of its territory, this State has sent forth a large and valu- 
able population to all the new States and Territories, especially to California, which 
immigration accounts in part for its small Baptist statistics. And a second reason 
for this is found in the fact that in 1780 Rev. Benjamin Randall, a Baptist preacher 
of ability and influence, established the Free-Will Baptist denomination, which ab- 
sorbed a number of our Churches and became a strong body in the State. The 
Free Baptists differ from the old body chiefly in rejecting Calvinistic doctrine and 
the practice of strict communion. 

The list of noble ministers which New Hampshire has given to our Churches 
in addition to those already named is very marked. It includes Alonzo King, the 
biographer of George Dana Boardman, Enoch and Elijah Hutchinson, and John 
Learned. Thomas Baldwin served the Clrurch at Caanan for seven years, during 
which time he planted other Churches at Grafton, Hebron and Groton. In 
later years, one of the most noted men of the State was found in Dr. E. E. Cum- 
mings. He was one of the most faithful of men to his trusts. Born in Clare- 
mont, N. H., November 9th, 1800, he joined the Baptist Church there in 1821, 



388 VERMONT BAPTISTS. 

graduated at Waterville College in 1828, and was that year ordained pastor of the 
Church in Salisbury. He became pastor of the First Church, Concord, in 1832, 
and remained there till 1854, when he took the pastorate of the Pleasant Street 
Church. After serving these two Churches for thirty-three years, he spent the 
last years of his life as a missionary in the State at large, dying February 22d, 1886. 
It is said that he left a manuscript on the history of our ministry for the first hun- 
dred years of its existence in New Hampshire, which certainly should be given to 
the world. 

Vermont. The Great Awakening, or New Light revival, had swept over Ver- 
mont quite as powerfully as it had over New Hampshire, or even more so, possibly 
because it was nearer the scene of the sternest conflict. Jonathan Edwards had 
succeeded his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, as pastor at Northampton, and had 
attempted to close the door of Church membership against the unconverted, when 
that Church, wedded to the Half-way Covenant, dismissed him, and he was obliged 
to go into the wilderness to preach the Gospel to the Housatonic Indians. There, 
though broken in health, the great metaphysician and theologian spent six years 
in coming nearer and nearer to the truth on all that related to the anti-sacramenta- 
rian doctrine and a regenerated Church, until on these points he stood side by side 
with the Baptists. His doctrine spread rapidly through Vermont ; but nowhere 
did it take firmer hold than in the town of Shaftsbury. In 1768, the first Baptist 
Church of Vermont sprang from the movement in that town, chiefly under the 
leadership of Bliss Willoughby, the pastor of a Separatist Church, who went a step 
further than Edwards in the proper observance of Gospel ordinances, and became 
a Baptist in 1761. Three other Churches went out from this Church, in the same 
town, within the ensuing ten years ; after which came a number of other Churches 
in quick succession, amongst them that at Pownal in 1773, at Woodstock in 1779. 
those at Guilford, Dummerston and many others, numbering 41 Churches in 1793, 
with 40 ministers and 2,221 members. 

As these interests increased Baptist ministers were sent for from other parts of 
New England, and some removed to Vermont for permanent residence. More 
than a score are mentioned by name, amongst them Ransom and Ledoyt, Elisha 
Ransom becoming pastor at Woodstock in 1780. As in the rest of New England, 
the Vermont Baptists paid a great price for their liberty ; everywhere having to 
fight the old battle with the Standing Order. Ransom, under date of March 23d, 
1795, writes of a member of Elder Drew's Church at Hartford, Vt., who was sent 
to jail for refusing to pay the State Church rates, yet was obliged to pay them. 
He contested the case with the authorities at a cost of more than £50, but in each 
trial the decision was against him. Ransom says that five petitions with more than 
two hundred signatures were sent up to the Assembly asking for redress ; then he adds : 

' I went to speak for them ; and after my averment that the certificate law was 
contrary to the rights of man, of conscience, the first, third, fourth and seventh 



VERMONT BAPTISTS OF NOTE. 389 

articles of our Constitution, and to itself, for it took away our rights and then offered 
to sell them bach to us for a certificate, some stretched their mouths, and though no 
man contradicted me in one argument, yet they would shut their eyes, and say that 
they could not see it so. I had many great friends in the house, but not a majority.' 

The Baptists of Vermont have been characterized by both ministers and lay- 
men of signal ability. Some of our first educators have sprung from their ranks, 
for they have always been distinguished for their love of learning. Amongst these 
we have the late Irah Chase and Daniel Hascall, Rev. Drs. A. C. Kendrick and T. J. 
Conant. Laymen of note are found in Hon. Jonas Galusha, at one time Governor 
of Vermont ; Hon. Ezra' Butler, also Governor of the State, and Hon. Aaron Ice- 
land, Lieutenant-Governor ; yet each of these preached the Gospel. Ephraim Saw- 
yer and John Conant (though born in Massachusetts) were men of renown, the 
former as a soldier in the Revolutionary War, and the latter as a justice of the peace 
and a member of the Vermont Legislature for many years. But our denomination 
has never been strong in that State. Like New Hampshire, its people have removed 
West with the great tide of emigration, especially to western JN T ew York, in earlier 
times, and then markedly to Ohio and the still newer States. At present we have 7 
Associations in Vermont, 116 churches, 104 ministers and 8,880 members. It may 
be well here to note the excitement which existed in many of the Vermont Baptist 
Churches in the year 1843, on the question of our Lord's second advent. Deacon 
William Miller lived near Poultney, a man of strong but uncultivated mind, who 
devoted most of his time to the study of the prophecies and Rollin's ' Ancient 
History,' making this and other such works an index to the interpretation of 
prophecy. Having created for himself a system of interpretations, by a method 
peculiarly his own, he believed that he had demonstrated that Christ would come 
on or about February 15th 1843. He exerted large influence on all who knew him, 
from his many excellencies and spotless character. He had been a captain in the 
War of 1812 and fought valiantly at the battle of Plattsburg ; he was also a civil 
magistrate in his own town. In person he was large and heavily built, his head 
broad and his brow high, with a soft and expressive eye, and all the inflections 
of his voice indicated the sincerest devotion. His imagination was quite fervid, 
and having drawn his conclusion from a defective premise it became to him a real 
fact. In this state of mind he went about lecturing, using large charts illustrative 
of the visions of Daniel and John. Immense throngs came to hear him, a number 
of ministers and laymen of large mind embraced his views, and the greatest excite- 
ment prevailed over the eastern and northern parts of our country. . Many Churches, 
especially amongst Baptists, Methodists and Congregationalists, were seriously 
disturbed by the controversy and some were rent to pieces. The press teemed with 
discourses and pamphlets on the subject, many of them absurd enough on both 
sides. Much ill-feeling also sprang up, as is usual in such cases, and both sides 
arrogated to themselves a tone of plenary infallibility in the interpretation of dis- 



S90 WILLIAM MILLER, IN A. D. 1843. 

puted passages. The controversy surged for months around the passage, ' Of that 
day and hour knoweth no man,' the anti-Adventists taking the sage ground that as 
they did not know that he would come, therefore he would not ; and the Ad- 
ventists replying, that because they did not know that he would not come, there- 
fore he surely would. What made the excitement the more furious was the sudden 
rush of an enormous comet upon the heavens, unannounced, early in January, which 
blazed for weeks, until its sword-like train divided into two blades. Then came 
a heavy fall of red snow, such as is often found in the Arctic regions and the Alps ; 
and although Professor Agassiz had demonstrated, three years before, that this tinge 
was occasioned by the presence of animalcules in the flakes, it made no difference in 
the interpretation of the phenomenon, which was to the effect, that they were 
supernaturally impregnated with some gelatinous and chemical element, which was 
simply fuel for burning up the earth. The craze went so far that many made white 
ascension robes and stood shivering in the snow on the nights of February 14th and 
15th, expecting to be caught up into the air, and meetings were held in hundreds of 
places of worship during those nights, while many sold all that they had and proved 
their sincerity by giving the money to the sick and suffering. The writer had 
much conversation with Mr. Miller, and has in his possession a number of books 
bought from the library of the late Rev. George Storrs, one of the leading advocates 
of Mr. Miller's doctrine, who so used his money. The same order of delusion has 
appeared in the earth several times during the ages, and is sure to occur again, judg- 
ing from present appearances. 

Georgia. Governor Oglethrop settled this colony in 1733, and at least two 
Baptists, Messrs. Campbell and Dunham, came over in the ship with him ; others 
soon followed, amongst them Mr. Polhill. When Whitefield came, in 1751, 
Nicholas Bedgewood accompanied him to take charge of the Orphan House, which 
was soon erected near Savannah. This young man had a classical education and was 
a fine speaker. Five years after his arrival he was baptized by Rev. Oliver Hart, 
pastor of the Baptist Church at Charleston, and two years later, he was ordained, 
and baptized Benjamin Stirk and several other converts at the Orphan House, 
where many suppose that a branch Church to that at Charleston was formed ; in his 
turn, he became a minister in 1767, preaching in his own house at Newington above 
Savannah, and formed a branch Church to that at Eutaw, S. C. Edmund Botsford 
came from England in 1771, was converted in the Charleston Church, and went as 
a missionary into Georgia. Daniel Marshall also removed from South Carolina into 
Georgia in 1771 ; and Botsford falling in with Colonel Barnard, at Augusta, intro- 
duced him to Marshall at Kiokee, where he had formed the first Baptist Church 
proper in the colony, in 1772. Botsford was then but a licentiate, and his meeting 
with this veteran was very interesting. Marshall said : 

' Well, sir, you are to preach for us ? ' 

' Yes, sir, by your leave,' Botsford replied, ' but I am at a loss for a text.' 



REV. DANIEL MARSHALL. 391 

' Look to the Lord for one,' was Marshall's answer. 

He preached from the words, ' Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and 
I will declare what he has done for my soul.' Marshall was greatly blessed under 
the sermon, and at its close said : ' I can take thee by the hand and call thee brother, 
for somehow I never heard convarsion better explained in my life ; but I would not 
have thee think thou preachest as well as Joe Reese and Philip Mulkey ; however, 
I hope thee will go home with me.' He did, and they were like David and Jona- 
than to each other to the close of life. 

Botsford's ministry was greatly honored of God, and he organized several 
Churches, amongst them the second in Georgia, called the Botsford Church, 
near Augusta, in 1773. Other Churches were soon formed, for in 1784 the 
Georgia Association was organized by five Churches, which number increased so 
rapidly that in 1793 there were in Georgia sixty-one Churches, with 3,227 commu- 
nicants. Baptist interests were established too late in this colony to subject our 
brethren there to the persecutions which they endured in many of the older 
colonies. Tet, on January 11th, 1758, the General Assembly, meeting at Savannah, 
passed a law making the Church of England the Church of the province. It estab- 
lished two parishes, ' Christ's Church,' at Savannah, and ' St. Paul's,' at Augusta, 
and provided for their support by public tax, also for the establishment of other 
parishes in clue time. Under this law Daniel Marshall was arrested one Sabbath ' for 
preaching in the parish of St. Paul ' contrary to the ' rites and ceremonies of the 
Church of England.' His congregation was assembled in a beautiful grove, under 
the blue sky, and he was on his knees making the opening prayer, when a hand was 
laid on his shoulder and a voice interrupted him saying : ' You are my prisoner ! ' 
He was then sixty-five years of age and his hair was white as snow. The man of 
God arose and gave security to appear for trial the next day at Augusta, and the 
constable, Samuel Cartledge, released him, without a word of remonstrance or rebuke 
from the venerable preacher. 

But Mrs. Martha Marshall, a woman of a most powerful mind, and, as she dem- 
onstrated on several occasions, of remarkable eloquence, not only remonstrated 
stoutly, but with all the solemnity of a prophetess exhorted Cartledge to flee from the 
wrath to come and be saved from his sins. Dr. J. H. Campbell says that the man 
was so moved that he did repent and seek his salvation, that Marshall baptized him 
in 1777, when he first became a deacon in the Church at Kiokee, and in 17S9 he was 
ordained a minister. He was little more than twenty-one when he was converted, 
and preached the Gospel for half a century, dying in 1813 at the age of ninety 
three years. The early history of the Georgia Baptists was marked by many ex- 
tensive revivals of religion, sometimes adding many thousands to their Churches in a 
year, as in 1S12-13, 1820 and in 1S27, when between 15,000 and 20,000 persons were 
added to them. This great revival was largely promoted by the labors of Adiel 
Sherwood, D.D., who seemed to be endued with power from heaven. He was pas- 



392 ADIEL SHERWOOD, D.D. 

tor at that time of the Churches at Milledgeville, Greeneborough, and Eatonton, at 
the last of which places he taught in an academy. One Sabbath in September he was 
preaching in the open air, before the Ocmulgee Association, at Antioch Church, in 
Morgan County, when the power of God fell upon the people in the most wonder- 
ful maimer. At the close of his sermon he asked all. who wished for the prayers 
of the assembly to present themselves. The first one to accept the invitation 
was one of the most accomplished young gentlemen in Georgia, in all that relates 
to grace of person, courteous manners, breadth of mind and natural eloquence. 
This was Dr. John E. Dawson, who afterwards became one of the most brilliant and 
pathetic preachers in the South. It is estimated that 4,000 persons followed him 
that clay in asking the prayers of the congregation, and within two years about 
16,000 people, according to Dr. Sherwood's private memoranda, were added to the 
Churches, as the fruit of that meeting more or less directly. 

Dr. Sherwood was one of the most godly men in America. He was born at 
Fort Edward, K Y., in 1791, and was the son of a Revolutionary soldier, a firm 
personal friend of General Washington. In 1817 Adiel graduated at Union Col- 
lege, and then passed a year at the Andover Theological Seminary, when, his health 
becoming somewhat impaired, he went to Georgia. He was ordained to the work 
of the ministry in that State, and in 1828 he preached 333 sermons in forty coun- 
ties, with astonishing success. After filling many places of trust, he became the 
Professor of Sacred Literature in Marshall College and finally its President. In 
person he was large and dignified, very vehement in manner, though tender in spirit, 
possessing a prudent and executive mind ; thoughtful and learned, he stood in the 
front ranks as a speaker and writer. Georgia owes much to him for its pre-emi- 
nence as a Baptist State, especially in that zeal and intelligence which have made our 
Churches and ministry so strong within its bounds. No one else has exerted so wide 
and healthy an influence in advancing our cause there excepting his true yoke-fel- 
low, Rev. Jesse Mercer, whose apostolic wisdom, zeal and spirituality have rendered 
him immortal. And yet, a noble army of godly men have filled their places and 
each done an Order of work which none other could have done. This is equally 
true of the living and the dead. Amongst the laymen we have had Governors 
Rabun and Lumpkin, with the Reeveses, Wellborns and Stocks, statesmen and 
jurists of the first class ; and the names of her ministers are held in universal 
reverence, as, the two Marshalls, the two Mercers, with Holcomb, Saunders, 
Clay, Johnson, Binney, Crawford and Dagg. From the first our brethren there 
have been Calvinistic in their doctrines, strict in their communion, as well as 
the firm friends of educational and missionary work. Taking all things into 
the account, the Georgia Baptists have been characterized, and still are, for their 
mental vigor, their extraordinary knowledge of human nature, their deep con- 
victions of Gospel truth, and an overpowering native eloquence in winning men to 
Christ. 



SENATOR JOSEPH E. BROWN. 



393 



Hon. Joseph E. Brown, United States Senator from Georgia, has long been 
one of the leading Baptists of that State. He was born in South Carolina April 
5th, 1821, but while young his father removed to Georgia. He enjoyed no educa- 
tional advantages until he was 



SB§^„ 





*SIP 




HON". JOSEPH E. BROWX. 



nineteen years of age, when he 
determined to leave his father's 
farm to procure a collegis,te edu- 
cation. His mother made him a 
suit of homespun clothes, his 
father gave him a pair of young 
oxen for his patrimony, and he 
started on a nine days' journey 
to the Calhoun Academy in South 
Carolina. A farmer agreed to 
give him eight months' board in ^j 

payment for his oxen, Wesley ^j 

Leverett, the principal of the 1( 

school, promised his tuition on 
credit, and so the young hero be- 
gan life. He made rapid prog- 
ress with his studies, and at the 

end of the eight months he taught school. Having earned money enough to pay 
his instructor, he returned to the academy and began a new credit both for tuition 
and board. In two years he was ready to enter an advanced class in college, but 
was obliged to forego that high privilege, to teach school in Canton, Ga. "While 
again earning money to pay his debts he became a private tutor in the family of 
Dr. Lewis, at Canton, and gave his spare time to the study of law. In 1815 he was 
admitted to the bar, after a searching examination ; but not satisfied with this, by 
the aid of the doctor he entered the law school at Yale College, where, in 1846, he 
was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Laws, when he returned to Georgia and 
rapidly rose in his profession. He was elected to the Senate of Georgia in 1S19, 
Judge of the Superior Court in 1855, and Governor of the State in 1857. He 
served in this high office for four terms, being re-elected the last time in 1863. In 
1869 he was appointed Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia for the term 
of twelve years, but resigned his office after filling it with much ability for two 
years, when he accepted the presidency of the Western and Atlantic Railroad Com- 
pany. He was appointed by Governor Colquitt, in 1880, to fill the vacancy occa- 
sioned by the resignation of General Gordon in the United States Senate. Since, 
he has been elected to the Senate, the last time with but one vote against him. 

While at Calhoun Academy, and when but twenty-two years of age, he was 
baptized, on the profession of his faith, by Elder C. P. Dean, and has been marked 



394 DEMANDS FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 

for his devotion to the cause of Christ ever since. He is a man of well balanced 
and strong mind, but of few words. His understanding is clear, his temper calm, 
his will firm, and he possesses that sagacious, matter-of-fact common sense which 
never fails him in time of trial. Withal, being blessed with large wealth and a 
benevolent heart, his liberality is widely felt in supporting charitable, educational 
and religious plans. When the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary was passing 
through its most trying days, he quietly gave it $50,000 and infused new life into 
its endowment. This act could not fail to reach the public ear, though he was un- 
ostentatious in his gift. Senator Brown is a trustee of the University of Georgia, 
and foremost in all the important movements of the Baptist denomination in that 
State. 

The Georgia Baptists of early times firmly withstood all the aggressions of the 
State upon the Church until they secured their religious liberties. On the one 
hand they could not be forced to pay a tax for the State Church, and on the 
other, they could not be cajoled into the acceptance of State money for the support 
of their own Churches. On the 21st of February, 1785, an Act was passed by the 
Legislature for the support of religion, which provided that ' thirty heads of families' 
in any community might choose a minister ' to explain and inculcate the duties of 
religion,' and ' four pence on every hundred pounds valuation of property ' should 
be taken out of the public tax for the support of such minister. The Baptists 
formed a large majority in many parts of the State, and could have chosen many 
ministers under this Act, but instead of doing so, they united in a remonstrance to 
the Legislature in the following May, and sent it by the hands of Silas Mercer and 
Peter Smith, insisting that the obnoxious law should be repealed, on the ground that 
the State had nothing to do with the support of religion by public tax, and it was 
repealed. (Pub. Bees, of Ga., MS. vol. B., p. 284, Marshall Papers.) Yet as late 
as 1863 they found it necessary to fight another battle on that subject. The New 
Code of Georgia provided, in Section 1376, that ' it shall be unlawful for any 
Church, society or other bod}', or any persons, to grant any license or other authority 
to any slave or free person of color to preach, or exhort, or otherwise officiate in 
Church matters.' This aroused the Baptists of the State, and a very powerful 
paper, drawn by Dr. H. H. Tucker, and largely signed by his brethren, was sent in 
remonstrance and protest to the Legislature, demanding the repeal of this iniquitous 
provision. They denounced it ' as a seizure by force of the things that are God's, 
and a rendering them unto Caesar,' an ' usurpation of ecclesiastical power by civil au- 
thorities.' They resisted it as a trespass upon the rights of conscience and a viola- 
tion of religious liberty. They claimed that ' it is the sacred right of the black to 
preach, exhort or pray, if God has called and commanded him to do either.' They 
protested that it was an offense against 100,000 Baptist communicants in the State, 
and that the Baptist Church in Columbia, ' with the new Code spread open before 
their eyes, and with a full knowledge and understanding of the intent and meaning 



PROSPERITY OF GEORGIA BAPTISTS. 395 

of Section 1376. and after a thorough discussion of its provisions, deliberately vio- 
lated the same, and ordained two negroes to officiate in Church matters in the office 
of deacon.' They claim that the obnoxious law ' trespasses not only on the rights 
of men but on the rights of God. It dictates to the Almighty what color his 
preachers shall be . . . and says to Omnipotence : " Thus far shalt Thou go and no 
further." It allows Jehovah to have ministers of a certain complexion, and so 
exacting and rigid are these regulations imposed on the Almighty that they not only 
forbid his having preachers such as he may choose, but also prescribe that none shall 
■even exhort, or in any way whatever " officiate in Church matters, unless they be 
approved by this self-exalted and heaven-defying tribunal." Nor is there any reason 
to suppose that the spirit which prompted the act now under protest would stop, if 
unchecked, at its present point of audacity. Having prescribed color as one qualifi- 
cation for the pulpit, it might prescribe another qualification to-morrow.' The ob- 
noxious section was repealed, and the State no longer imposes restrictions on the 
freedom of the Churches. 

The contests which the Georgia Baptists pushed against all that is narrow in igno- 
rance and bigotry, especially from 1827 to 1840, in the shape of Anti-effort, has made 
the entire denomination their debtors. As in Maryland, the old school, or Primitive 
Baptists, as they loved to call themselves, arose in great strength, dividing Churches 
and rending Associations with great bitterness. This Antinomian element assailed 
their brethren with bitter satire, an element not known in the New Testament. One 
of the periodicals of the times published a sermon intended to caricature their mis- 
sionary brethren who were spending their lives in beseeching men to be reconciled to 
God. Its text was taken from Prov. xxvii, 27 : ' Thou shalt have goats' milk enough 
for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for the maintenance of thy maidens.' 
The preacher said that those who raised money for missions were first milking the 
sheep of Christ's flock; then turning to the non-professing goats, they obtained 
goat's milk enough for their editors, agents and secretaries, who were the maidens of 
the household, and so the poor drained goats fattened a few sinecures. Hard 
pushed with such trash, they brought ridicule upon our Lord's commission to 'go 
into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.' Our brethren had the 
wisdom and firmness to resist this blight most steadfastly ; one result of which is 
seen in the fact that now the laborious and aggressive Baptists are left nearly alone 
in the field. Their success has been astonishing, so that to-day they have the largest 
Baptist population of any State in the Union. They have 102 Associations, 1,601 
ministers, 2,623 Churches, and 261,31-4 members. Nearly half the Baptists of Geor- 
gia are colored people, who in latter years have been greatly aided by forming sepa- 
rate Churches and Associations of their own, and the present prospect, both of 
the white and colored Baptists, is more bright and prosperous than ever before. 



CHAPTER IX. 

BAPTISTS AND THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 

AS time is the only reliable interpreter of prophecy, so history best traces the 
hand of God in preparing men for great events. It was impossible for the 
Baptists of the colonies to understand why they endured so much for their princi- 
ples and secured so little in return, from the settlement of New England to the 
time of the Revolution. The Declaration of Independence was made July 4th, 
1776, and the nation's struggle for liberty lasted about seven years. As nearly as we 
can get at the figures, there were but 97 Baptist Churches in all the colonies in 1770, 
and many of these were so very small, that one pastor, where they had pastors, sup- 
plied several of them lying many miles apart and preached to them only at long 
intervals of time, while others were dependent entirely on occasional visits from 
itinerant preachers. There was a large increase of Churches during the war, although 
many Churches were scattered, but in 1784 our total membership in the thirteen 
colonies was only about 35,000, although one hundred and forty-five years had 
passed since the Church at Providence was constituted, and one hundred and 
nineteen years since the Church at Boston was gathered. Where they had houses 
of worship they were of the commonest character, and the most of their ministers 
received no salary. So common was it for the Churches to content themselves 
with one sermon a month, that these came to be known as 'Thirty-day Baptists,' 
and so ignorant or mean, or both, were many of them, that they thought it the abso- 
lute duty of their pastors to support themselves by a profession, by farming, or 
some other form of manual labor, and then prove their Apostolic calling by preach- 
ing for nothing. This class of Baptists took the greatest possible comfort in the 
thought that while the 'starched gentry' of the Standing Order peeled them by 
taxation, their pastors were strangers to ' filthy lucre.' 

Under these conditions our ministry could not be eminent for learning. When 
Manning established his preparatory school at Warren, he and Hezekiah Smith, who 
had studied with him at Princeton, together with Jeremiah Condy and Edward 
Upham, graduates of Harvard, were the only liberally educated Baptist pastors in 
New England. Some who subsequently became known as scholars had studied with 
Isaac Eaton, at Hopewell. In addition to the above named, Dr. Guild mentions 
Samuel Jones and a number more who were students at that academy, and also in that 
opened at Lower Dublin in 1776. Several years later, William Williams, one of the 
first graduates of Rhode Island College, was added to the list of the educated, and 



BAPTISTS DEMAND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 397 

opened an academy at Wrentham, Mass. Things existed much after the same order 
in the Middle and Southern Colonies, for down to that time the chief education of 
our ministry had consisted in that moral strength and fortitude which hardship and 
severity inspire. God, who foresaw the times which were to try men's souls, was 
clearly educating one class of his people to meet the high destiny for which only 
scourging, bonds and imprisonments can discipline men. Brown University had 
begun its work, and the Denomination was feeling after its future ; but for the then 
present necessity, what our ministry lacked in the work of the schools, when com- 
pared with their Congregational brethren, was marked by a like disparity in favor 
of the Baptists in consecration to the saving of men. Their doctrine, that none but 
the regenerate should enter the Church of Christ, inspired that effort to bring men 
to repentance which could not spring from faith in birthright membership. The 
social and political forces combined against them only contributed to maintain their 
zeal and devotion. To falter in maintaining the truth was to be crushed out of 
existence. Besides, nothing but aggressive work could keep them alive to their 
peculiar views of religious liberty. Others were moved to resist the aggressions of 
Britain, simply on the ground that they were the victims of political oppression. 
This the Baptists felt also, but their circumstances impelled them to seek a higher 
order of liberty than that sought by their fellow-citizens. Whatever oppressions 
England inflicted \ipon the colonies she seldom deprived them of their religious 
liberties, but from the first left them to manage these alone. Excepting in Virginia, 
the colonies, and not the mother government, laid the heavy yoke of religious op- 
pression upon the Baptist neck. On several occasions they had appealed to the 
crown and their religious grievances had been redressed, as against their colonial 
oppressors. Hence, in the Revolution they were to fight a double battle ; one with 
their political enemies on the other side of the sea, and the other with their religions 
tyrants on this side. The colonies were not about to begin a revolution for re- 
ligious liberty ; that they had ; but the Baptists demanded both, and this accounts for 
the desperation with which they threw themselves into the struggle, so that we have 
no record of so much as one thorough Baptist tory. 

Down to the Revolution, all the colonies, with the exception of Rhode Island, 
New Jersey and Pennsylvania, had a Church established either by law or custom 
as the rightful controller of the spiritual interests of the people, and those of Massa- 
chusetts and Virginia were peculiarly intolerant. In these the influence of the 
Baptists, as the champions of religious equality, was especially felt, as they resisted 
the legislative, judicial and executive departments combined. They were embold- 
ened in this resistance from the fact that they took and held a footing despite 
this combination against them, and by piece-meal wrenched from their foes the 
recognition of their rights. In 1753 a law was passed in Massachusetts exempting 
Baptists from taxation to support the Standing Order, on condition that they con- 
fessed and proved themselves ' Anabaptists,' by certificates from three such Churches. 



398 MASSACHUSETTS RELAXES HER SEVERITY. 

Meetings were called in Boston, Medfield and Bellingham, to devise methods of 
relief from this offensive act. John Proctor, a public-school teacher of Boston, and 
one of the original members of the Second Baptist Church there, was appointed to 
carry the case to England. He also drew up a remonstrance to .the Legislature 
claiming that, under the charter of William and Mary, the Baptists had as good, 
ample and extensive a right to think and act for themselves in matters of a relig- 
ious nature as any other Christians. This action somewhat lightened the execution 
without lessening the severity of the laws, for the last statute, passed in 1771, simply 
relieved the Baptist tax-payer from the necessity of presenting a certificate from 
three other Churches to prove him an ' Anabaptist.' The moral effect of many of 
the able documents drawn up by the Warren Association, Isaac Backus, and 
others, against these unrighteous laws, was very great on the thinking portion of 
the community, which compelled moderation when banishment and whipping became 
impossible. Virginia Baptists wrung some similar ameliorations from their Legis- 
lature which led them to throw themselves with all their hearts into the Revolu- 
tionary struggle, for they knew that if they secured full political independence 
religious freedom must necessarily follow. 

It would furnish a splendid chapter in American Baptist History to sketch the 
honor-roll of the great fathers whom God was raising up from the first quarter of 
the eighteenth century to serve in the last, and who were to become the leaders in 
their contest for perfect religions emancipation. In addition to many others who had 
fought the first battles, he raised up a special host who were to push this conflict 
to its close, from Isaac Backus to John Leland ; the man who saw the last vestige of 
religious oppression wiped off the statute-book of Massachusetts, in 183L She 
was the first of all the colonies to begin, and the last of all the States to end relig- 
ious intolerance. 

We have seen that Isaac Backus, the Baptist historian, was born in Con- 
necticut, January 9th, 1721, so that dying as late as November 20th, 1806, he lived 
through all the stages of the Revolution and saw his brethren as well as his country 
free. When the Warren Association appointed a committee to seek redress of 
grievances for the Baptists, and appointed first Hezekiah Smith, and then Rev. John 
Davis, their agent to the Court of Great Britain, Dr. Backus was exerting himself 
to the utmost in this direction. In the admirable biography of Backus by Dr. 
Hovey we have a graphic picture of the enthusiasm with which he threw himself 
into the work of changing the legislation from which his own Church at Middle- 
borough had suffered so much, as well as his brethren elsewhere. He had been 
schooled in suffering for conscience' sake. His mother, Elizabeth Tracy Backus, was 
a descendant from the Winslow family, and became a devout Christian three years 
before Isaac was born ; she was of a very strong character, and brought up her son 
in the love and fear of God. With many others she became a Separatist at Norwich, 
and when left a widow refused to pay the State-Church tax, for conscience' 



DR. ISAAC BACKUS. 



399 




sake. ■ On the night of October 15th, 1752, when she was ill, and seated before 
the fire wrapped in thick clothing to induce perspiration, the officers came, and 
as she says in a letter to her son, dated November 4th, 1752, ' Took me away 
to prison, about nine o'clock, in a dark, rainy night. Brothers Hill and Sabins 
were brought there the next night. We 
lay in prison thirteen days, and were 
then set at liberty, by what means I 
know not.' Her son Samuel lay in 
prison twenty days for the same crime. 
She evinced the essence of heroism, the 
genuine spirit of a confessor. The 
officer thought that she would yield 
when sick of a fever, and pay her rates 
rather than be cast into a doleful jail 
on a chill, stormy night in mid-Octo- 
ber. Yet, hear her soul triumph, for 
she says : 

' Oh ! the condescension of heaven ! 
Though I was bound when cast into this 
furnace, yet I was loosed and found Jesus 
in the midst of a furnace with me. Oh, 

then I could give up my name, estate, fain- isaac backi 

ily, life and health freely to God. Now 

the prison looked like a palace to me. I could bless God for all the laughs and 
scoffs made at me. Oh, the love that flowed out to all mankind ; then I could for- 
give as I would desire to be forgiven, and love my neighbor as myself. Deacon 
Griswold was put in prison the 8th of October, and yesterday old Brother Grover, 
and [they] are in pursuit of others, all which calls for humiliation. This Church 
has appointed the 13th of November to be spent in prayer and fasting on that ac- 
count. I do remember my love to you and your wife and the dear children of 
God with you, begging your prayers for us in such a day of trial. We are all in 
tolerable health, expecting to see you. These are from your loving mother, 
Elizabeth Backus.' 

The spirit of the mother was cherished by her son to the close of his life. The 
high esteem in which he is held is evinced in a private letter to Dr. Guild from 
Hon. George Bancroft, the historian, dated at Newport, R. I., September 25th, 
1885, in which he writes : ' I look always to a Baptist historian for the ingenuous- 
ness, clear discernment, and determined accuracy which form the glory of their 
great historian Backus.' 

Samuel Stillman, D.D., who was born in Philadelphia February 27th, 1737, 
and died March 12th, 1807, was another great Baptist leader during the Revolu- 
tionary period. At the age of eleven he removed with his parents to South Carolina, 
where he enjoyed the tuition of Mr. Rind, a classical tutor of renown. When still 

a youth, he was converted under the labors of Mr. Hart, by whom he was bap- 
28 



400 



DR. STILLMAN. 






tized and with whom he studied theology. In 1758, when he was but twenty-one 
years of age, he began to preach on James Island, near Charleston. Ill health 
compelled him to spend two years at Bordentown, N. J., when he was invited to be- 
come assistant to Rev. Mr. Bound, in the Second Church, Boston, where he spent 
about a year ; and January 9th, 1765, he became pastor of the First Church, Boston, 
which he served until his death, a period of forty-two years. The distinguishing 
traits of his character were purity of heart, and fidelity to his convictions. He was 

brilliant, and sought th'e high- 
est intellectual attainments, but 
instinctively eschewed all lit- 
erary pomp and display, par- 
ticularly that academical don- 
nishness of style which many 
scholastic notables affect. And 
yet, because of his extreme 
taste in manners, dress and bear- 
ing, clownish folk, whose vul- 
garity was an annoyance to 
him and an offense, were ever 
ready to assail him, even with 
censoriousness. Like Dr. Bald- 
win, he was dignified in his 
bearing, observing all those 
points of decorum which dis- 
tinguished the careful pastor 



of ISTew England in former 
days. Elias Smith, an eccen- 
tric minister of Boston, who 
caused his brethren consider- 
able trouble, complains of Drs. Stillman and Baldwin for insisting that he should 
dress more becomingly, and for enforcing proper order in connection with his induc- 
tion into the pastoral office. Dr. Cornell says, in his ' Recollections of Y e Olden 
Time,' that when Smith was settled as pastor over the Baptist Church at Wobnrn, 
in 1789, they required him to be ' installed.' This he denounced as a ' new-fangled 
ceremony,' but they insisted and he submitted. However, he took his revenge in 
saying : 

' Our popery was performed in the Congregational meetinghouse, and it was a 
high day within'. We made something of a splendid appearance as it respected the 
ignorant. We had two doctors of divinity, one or two A. M.'s, and we all wore bands. 
When we came out of the council chamber and walked in procession to the meet- 
ing-house, we looked as much like the cardinals coming out of the conclave after 
electing a pope, as our practice was like them. Dr. [Hezekiah] Smith said to me 




SAMUEL STILLMAN, D.D. 



HIS GREAT INFLUENCE. 401 

after installation : " I advise you to wear a band on Lord's days." This was a piece 
of foppery I always hated, and when I walked over with it on I then thought I 
acted with it as a pig does when he is first yoked, and almost struck it with ray 
knees for fear I should hit it. I should not have worn it that day but that Dr. 
Stillman, who was as fond of foppery as a little girl is of fine baby rags, brought 
one and put it on me.' 2 

But, Elias Smith's crotchets to the contrary, Samuel Stillman was as noble a man 
and as holy a patriot as ever trod American soil. He read the signs of the times 
with a true eye, and stood in his lot to breast the Revolutionary storm as long as it 
was possible. He was ever delicate in health, but earnest and fearless. He was 
deeply stirred by the outrages inflicted upon the Baptists of Massachusetts, and 
especially upon those of Ashfield, and signed a powerful petition, of which he was 
evidently the author, to the General Court for redress. That body had already 
taken the ground politically ' that no taxation can be equitable where such restraint 
is laid upon the taxed as takes from him the liberty of giving his own money freely.' 
With the skill of a statesman Dr. Stillman seized this concession and used it thus : 
' This being true, permit us to ask : With what equity is our property taken from 
us, not only without our consent, but violently, contrary to our will, and for such 
purposes as we cannot, in faithfulness to that stewardship with which God hath 
intrusted us, favor?' He, therefore, asked a repeal of their unjust laws, damages 
for the losses of the Baptists, and their perpetual exemption from all State Church 
rates thereafter. In 1766, ten years before the Declaration, he denounced the Stamp 
Act from his pulpit ; again sustained the Colonial cause in a sermon on the gen- 
eral election, 1770, and did not leave his post till the British troops occupied Boston, 
in 1775. Then his Church was scattered and for a short time he retired to Phila- 
delphia, but in 1776 be returned, gathered his flock anew, and kept his Church 
open all through the war, when nearly all others were closed at times. His 
eloquence was easy, sympathetic, warm and cheerful ; it was inspired with the 
freshness of a June morning, and it fascinated his hearers. He was nervous, 
kind, pure, healthful and welcome to all ; his motions were all grace, his 
voice was as cheerful as the truth that he told, his eye was full of light, 
and altogether he was the pulpit orator of New England. The late William R. 
Williams pronounced him ' probably the most eloquent and most universally beloved 
clergyman that Boston has ever seen.' Nor would he on any account swerve from the 
radical principles of the Gospel. The elite of Boston crowded his place of wor- 
ship. Dr. Pierce, late of Brookline, said that many a time he had walked from 
Dorchester when a boy, to get standing room in Stillman's meeting-house. And, 
commonly, John Adams, John Hancock, General Knox and other dignitaries 
delighted to mingle with the throng and listen to his expositions of depravity, sover- 
eignty, retribution and redemption. On one occasion his denunciation of sin was 
so scathing and awful that a refined gentleman on leaving the house remarked : 
' The doctor makes us all out a set of rascals, but he does it so gracefully and elo- 



402 THE TRUE PASTOR. 

quently that I am not disposed to find fault.' The forty years which lie spent in 
Boston covered the great discussion of all that led to the war, the war itself, the 
birth of a new nation, and the adoption of the new Federal Constitution, together 
with the Presidency of Washington, Adams and Jefferson ; he was a very decided 
Federalist in his political views. But all this time he was a leader in the councils of 
Ids brethren; and in their determined efforts to secure the sacred rights for which 
they suffered he never failed them. 

Withal, he was everything that a Church could ask in a pastor; diligent, ten- 
der-hearted and spotless in his sanctity. His ministry brought many to the Lord, 
•marked revivals of religion crowned his efforts, and he was the happiest of mortals 
in answering the question, ' What must I do to be saved?' His Church loved him 
•with a peculiar reverence. Dr. Neale, one of his immortal successors, says of him : 

c No pastor, before or since, was ever more beloved by his Church. His popu- 
larity was uninterrupted, and greater if possible in his old age than in his youth. A 
few individuals who sat under his ministry, and who were quite young when he was 
an old man, still survive and are present with us to-day. They never weary of talk- 
ing about him, and even now speak of this as Dr. Stillman's Church. They looked 
at the venerable pastor not only with the profoundest respect, but with the observant 
eye of childhood. They noticed and remembered everything in his external appear- 
ance, his wig and gown and bands, his horse and carriage, and negro man, Jephtha ; 
how he walked, how he talked, how lie baptized ; the peculiar manner in which he 
began his prayers : " O thou Father of mercies and God of all grace." : 

He oft expressed the wish that he might not outlive his influence, and God hon- 
ored his desire. His last sermon was on the ascension of Christ, and two weeks 
after, he died of paralysis, his last words being : ' God's government is infinitely 
perfect.' Dr. Baldwin preached his funeral sermon from 2 Tim. iv, 7, 8, and Dr. 
Pierce says : ' I have a distinct recollection of the funeral. All the members of the 
society appeared with badges of mourning, the women with black bonnets and 
handkerchiefs. If the pastor had been removed in the bloom of youth his people 
could not have been more deeply affected.' 3 

James Manning, D.D., may be mentioned next in chronological order, as a 
Baptist leader at the time of the Revolution. He was born at Elizabeth, K. J., 
October 22d, 1738, and died July 29th, 1791, so that in 1776 he was in the prime of 
his days. Under his influence, the Rhode Island College had come to be an estab- 
lished fact, the Warren Association had become a powerful body, and his influence 
throughout New England was very great. The exactions of the crown upon the Col- 
onies had become so onerous in 1774 that they determined to meet in a common 
Congress for the purposes of calm deliberation and resistance, if necessary, but to 
defend their rights under any circumstances. The delegates met in Carpenter's 
Hall, Philadelphia, September 5th, 1771. At the meeting of the Warren Asso- 
ciation, held at Medfield, September 14th, they resolved to address this first Conti- 
nental Congress not only upon the political wrongs inflicted on the Colonies but 



DR. JAMES MANNING. 



403 



upon their own privations, in that they were denied their rights as men to the free 
worship of God, and they sent Isaac Backus to present their case. He reached 
Philadelphia, October 8th, and on the 12th of that month the Philadelphia Asso- 
ciation appointed a large com- 
mittee to co-operate with the 
agent of the Warren Associa- 
tion. After consulting with 
a number of leading Quakers, 
they determined to seek a 
conference with the Massa- 
chusetts delegates rather than 
to address the Congress as 
such. Such a meeting hav- 
ing been arranged, they went 
to Carpenter's Hall, where 
they met Samuel and John 
Adams, Thomas Cushing and 
Robert Treat Paine, from 
Massachusetts ; James Ken- 
zie, of New Jersey ; Stephen 
Hopkins and Samuel Ward, 
of Rhode Island ; Joseph 
Galloway and Thomas Mif- 
fin, of Pennsylvania, and 
several other members of 
Congress; with many members of the Society of Friends, as Joseph Fox, Israel 
and James Pemberton, who sympathized with the suffering Baptists. Dr. Manning 
opened the case in behalf of his brethren in a brief but eloquent address, and then 
submitted a memorial which they had adopted. Dr. Guild says of this paper, that 
it ' should be written in letters of gold and preserved in lasting remembrance.' 

The first sentence couches the full Baptist doctrine in these ringing words : 
' It has been said by a celebrated writer in politics, that but two things are worth 
contending for — Religion and Liberty. For the latter we are at present nobly exert- 
ing ourselves through all this extensive continent; and surely no one whose bosom 
feels the patriotic glow in behalf of civil liberty can remain torpid to the more 
ennobling flame of Religious Freedom.' They go on to declare that the inalien- 
able rights of conscience rank too high to be subjected to fallible legislators, as that 
dignity belongs to God alone. Men may legislate hypocritical consciences into exist- 
ence, but cannot decree their fellow-men Christians. They had come to the free soil 
of Pennsylvania, to plead for that inestimable blessing which every lover of man- 
kind should desire. They then described the sufferings of their brethren in 




DR. MANNING. 



404 MANNING AT THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 

Massachusetts, amongst those who had fled from oppression because they scorned 
domination over conscience, and yet had become ignoble oppressors themselves. 
They claimed their right to the free exercise of their religion under the char- 
ter, and referred to some ameliorations which had been granted to them in 
Massachusetts, but showed that these were a hollow' mockery. For. example, 
in 1728 their persons were exempted from the religious tax, but not their property, 
if they did not live within five miles of a Baptist meeting-house; yet, in 1729, 
thirty persons, many of them Baptists, were confined in Bristol jail. In 1729, 1733, 
1734, and 1747, under pretense of exempting their property from this tax, they had 
been subjected not only to all sorts of annoyances but to much severe suffering, 
until these systematic wrongs culminated in the outrages which robbed the Baptists 
at Ashfleld, and sold their burying-grounds to build a Congregational meeting- 
house ; and they closed their appeal by pointing out the limits of human legislation, 
the just tenure of property, and the holy principles of Christianity, with the declara- 
tion that they were faithful citizens to all civil compacts ; and hence, as Christians, 
they had a right to stand side by side with other Christians in the use of their con- 
sciences in religion. 

This conference lasted four hours, and the Massachusetts delegation, having a 
hard case, tried to explain away the alleged facts as best they could, but exhibited 
much ill temper at the bare relation of these stinging facts. John Adams betrayed 
great weakness in this direction. He says that having been informed by Governors 
Hopkins and Ward, that President Manning and Mr. Backus wished to meet them 
on ' a little business,' they went to Carpenter's Hall, and there : 

'To my great sxirprise found the hall almost full of people, and a great number 
of Quakers seated at the long table with their broad brimmed beavers on their heads. 
We were invited to seats among them, and informed that they had received com- 
plaints from some Anabaptists and some Friends in Massachusetts, against certain 
laws of that province restrictive of the liberty of conscience, and some instances were 
mentioned in the General Court, and in the courts of justice, in which Friends and 
Baptists had been grievously oppressed. I know not how my colleagues felt, but I 
own I was greatly surprised and somewhat indignant, being, like my friend Chase, 
of a temper naturally quick and warm, at seeing our State and her delegates thus 
summoned before a self-created tribunal, which was neither legal nor constitutional. 
Isaac Femberton, a Quaker of large property and more intrigue, began to speak, 
and said that Congress was here endeavoring to form a union of the Colonies ; but 
there were difficulties in the way, and none of more importance than liberty of con- 
science. The laws of New England, and particularly of Massachusetts, were incon- 
sistent with it, for they not only compelled men to pay to the building of churches 
and the support of ministers, but to go to some known religious assembly on first 
days, etc., and that he and his friends were desirous of engaging us to assure 
them that our State would repeal all those laws, and place things as they were 
in Pennsylvania.' 

He then goes on to call the simple Quaker 'this artful Jesuit,' and to accuse 
him of attempting to break up the Congress by drawing off Pennsylvania ; and 
then he put in this flimsy plea, which none but an 'indignant' man would have 



JOHN ADAMS INDIGNANT. 40S 

submitted when he was representing a great people in deliberation, concerning 
the surest way to break their fetters. He says that this was the substance of his 
own remarks : 

' That the people of Massachusetts were as religious and conscientious as the 
people of Pennsylvania, that their conscience dictated to them that it was their duty 
to preserve those laws, and, therefore, the very liberty of conscience which Mr. 
Pemberton invoked would demand indulgence for the tender consciences of the 
people of Massachusetts, and allow them to preserve their laws. . . . They might 
as well turn the heavenly bodies out of their annual and diurnal courses as the peo- 
ple of Massachusetts at the present day from their meeting-house and Sunday laws. 
Pemberton made no reply' but this: " ! sir, pray don't urge liberty of conscience 
in favor of such laws ! " . . . Old Isaac Pemberton was quite rude, and his rudeness 
was resented.' 

Clearly it was ; but not much to the honor of John Adams, by his own show- 
ing. The Bajjtists had less objection to the Congregationalists taxing themselves 
to support their own ministers for conscience sake, if their consciences were ' ten- 
der ' on that subject, than they had to that tenderness of Massachusetts conscience 
which compelled Baptists to support the Congregational ministry and their own too. 
This distinction seems to have been the rudeness in which Isaac Pemberton indulged 
and which Adams ' resented,' but just how ' indignant ' Adams would have been if 
Lord North had insisted that the tender conscience of England compelled her to en- 
force her laws in Massachusetts does not appear. Probably he would have been more 
' indignant ' still. Every kind of misrepresentation went abroad concerning this con- 
ference, and in high quarters the Baptists were accused of trying to prevent the 
Colonies from uniting against Britain, the effect of which was to throw stigma on 
them as the enemies of their country, and it is even said that Backus, their unflinch- 
ing agent, was threatened with the gallows. This slander they refuted in various doc- 
uments, but the answer which silenced all such empty clamor was the hearty una- 
nimity with which the whole body threw themselves into the support of the war when 
independence of Britain was proclaimed. Another strange episode of hatred 
revealed itself in this desperate struggle. When they could obtain no justice here, 
they appealed for help to their own brethren in London, and Dr. Stennett appeared 
with a plea for them before his majesty's Commissioners for Trade and Plantations. 
He begged their lordships to induce the king : 

' To disallow an act passed in the Province of Massachusetts Bay in June, 
1767, by which the Antipedo-Baptists and Quakers are compelled to pay to the 
support of a minister of a different persuasion. Their lordships thereupon read and 
considered the said act, and it was ordered that a draught of a representation to His 
Majesty should be prepared, proposing that it may be disallowed.' On July 31, 
1771, the King held a council, and 'His Majesty taking the same into consideration 
was pleased with the advice of his Privy Council to declare his disallowance of the 
said act, and to order that the said act be and it is hereby disallowed and rejected. 
Whereof the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, or Commander-in-Chief of His Majes- 
ty's said Province of Massachusetts Bay, for the time being, and all others whom 
it may concern, are to take notice and govern themselves accordingly.' 



406 ACTION OF THE MASSACHUSETTS CONGRESS. 

The loyalty of the Baptists to the American cause was so clearly evinced, their 
appeals for equal rights were so well-balanced and reasonable, and their unyielding 
struggles for liberty were so open and manly, that at last they began to be felt and 
respected in public affairs. Schooled in conscience and scourged to unconquerable 
resistance to tyranny, they were driven to the use of every honorable incentive; 
like wise men they organized for a long and severe contest, with Backus, Man- 
ning and Stillman at their head, and made their first attacks upon the strongholds of 
political Puritanism. Their powerful committee at Boston addressed a most states- 
manlike document to the Congress of Massachusetts, which met at Cambridge, No- 
vember 22d, 1774, in which they once more submitted their case. John Hancock, 
the president, presented the paper, and asked whether or not it should be read. The 
intolerants cried with one accord, ' No, no.' But a more considerate member rising 
said : ' This is very extraordinary, that we should pay no regard to a denomination 
who, in the place where he lived, were as good members of society as any, and were 
equally engaged with others in the defense of their civil liberties.' He moved that 
it be read, and the motion was adopted. After the reading the general disposition 
was to throw it out unacted upon. By that time Mr. Adams began to feel uneasy, 
and, rising to his feet, said that he apprehended if it were thrown out it might cause 
a division amongst the provinces, and he moved its reference to a committee. On 
consideration the Congress sent this soft and civil answer : 

' In Provincial Congress, Cambridge, December 9, 1774. 

' On reading the memorial of the Rev. Isaac Backus, agent to the Baptist 
Churches in this government : 

' Resolved, That the establishment of civil and religious liberty to each denom- 
ination in the province is the sincere wish of this Congress ; but being by no means 
vested with powers of civil government, whereby they can redress the grievances of 
any person whatever, they therefore recommend to the Baptist Churches that when 
a General Assembly shall be convened in this colony they lay the real grievances of 
said Churches before the same, when and where this petition will most certainly 
meet with all that attention due to the memorial of a denomination of Christians 
go well disposed to the public weal of their country. 

' By order of the Congress. ' JOHN HANCOCK, President. 

'Benjamin Lincoln, Secretary. 
' A true extract from the minutes.' 

The moral effect of this action on the public mind was very great, for it 
advised the Baptists what course to take in the matter of their ' real grievances,' 
and when the Assembly met, in October, 1775, a new and strong paper was sent for 
its consideration. Upon its presentation Major Hawley declared to the body that 
without doubt the Baptists had been injuriously treated, and the memorial was com- 
mitted to seven members for deliberate consideration. Dr. Asaph Fletcher, a Bap- 
tist, was on that committee, and after long debate it recommended redress of Bap- 
tist grievances. This caused great commotion in the House, and the memorial, with 
those who sent it, was severely attacked. Major Hawley defended both, and told 



ELDER JOHN LELAND. 407 

the Assembly ' that the established religion of this colony was not worth a groat, 
and wished it might fall to the ground,' as Dr. Fletcher writes. After long discus- 
sion it ordered that Dr. Fletcher ' have liberty to bring in a bill for the redress of 
such grievances as he apprehends the Baptists labor under.' When this was passed, 
Mr. Gerry moved that the Baptists withdraw their memorial, for he was offended 
with the plain and sound manner in which it had put their wrongs on record. 
Hawley opposed this motion, wishing the paper to be put on file, for it was worthy; 
' and he hoped it would lie there till it had eaten out the present establishment.' 
Fletcher brought in a bill, which was read but never acted upon. 

Dr. Manning was sent by the General Assembly of Rhode Island to the Con- 
tinental Congress, 1786, where he served as their representative, with great honor 
to himself and his constituents, his voice and pen being ever ready to treat the great 
subjects under consideration with marked skill. He had great influence with the 
people of New England, and especially in Massachusetts and Rhode Island ; which 
was felt in the most wholesome manner when the adoption of the Federal Constitu- 
tion was strongly opposed, for he cast his entire weight in its favor when it was in 
danger of rejection. He was far in advance of his times, both as a Baptist and an 
American. Broad, disinterested and self-sacrificing, his memory cannot be too 
sacredly cherished. He was manly and engaging in his address, spontaneous and 
forceful in his eloquence, symmetrical and powerful in body and mind, and, better 
than all besides, he was true to his holy convictions and his redeeming Lord. Another 
grand but very different Baptist leader of those days was : 

John Leland, born May 14th, 1754, at Grafton, Mass. ; died January 14th, 1841. 
No three great men could differ more widely than Stillman, Manning and Leland. 
They were all wise in council and mighty in execution, but they worked in various 
departments of patriotic activity and reached different classes. Leland's convictions 
were as clear and deep as they well could be, but his tastes and habits, as well as his 
early training, all ran in other channels than those of his compeers. They were 
drilled in classic thought and expression ; his associations had been with the pure, 
robust and sturdy plebeians of his youth. His powers were rare and natural ; theirs 
were molded by culture. They were polished, measured, graceful ; he followed 
the instincts of mother-wit, quick adaptation and eccentric eloquence. They reached 
the grave, the conservative and thoughtful ; he moved the athletic masses. They 
did more to begin the Baptist struggle under the Federalism of the East ; he lived to 
finish the triumph in the radical democracy of the South. It is, therefore, wonder- 
ful to see how exactly God adapted them to their fields and made them true yoke- 
fellows in the same holy cause. 

Leland was baptized by Noah Alden, of Bellingham, Mass., in 1774, only two 
years before the war, and after the most intense soul-agonies on account of his sins 
and exposure to the second death. A year afterwards he took his first journey to 
New Jersey and Virginia. In 1776 he united with the Baptist Church at Mount 



408 



LELAND'S PREACHING. 



Poney, in Culpeper County, and for a time was its pastor until he removed 
to Orange County. He spent much of his time in traveling at large and preach- 
ing the Gospel, spending about fifteen years of his ministry in Virginia, where 
he baptized about 700 persons on their faith in Christ. Dr. Semple said that he 
was probably the most popular preacher who ever resided in Virginia. The late 
Dr. Cone loved to describe him as he heard him preach ; in his own inimitable 
manner he would give the tones of his voice, his fertile genius in times of strait, 

his astonishing memory, espe- 
cially of Scripture, and his vi- 
vacity and wit in handling an 
antagonist, expressed in home 
thrusts and cogent logic. And, 
withal, he always spoke of 
Leland's awful solemnity in ad- 
dressing the Throne of Grace, 
and in enforcing the claims of 
, God's justice, truth and benev- 
olence. There was little of the 
sensational about him, but a 
tender unction often moved the 
crowds that followed him and 
led them without resistance to 
the atoning Lamb. He had 
many struggles of mind as to 
the most successful way of ad- 
dressing sinners and of leading 
them to repentance. He was a 
Calvinist, but would not be 
bound by the methods of Gill ; 
neither did Wesley or Andrew Fuller suit him ; and for practical purposes he 
thought that two grains of Arminianism with three of Calvinism made a good 
proportion in preaching. He says that one time he was preaching when his soul 
got 'into the trade winds J and when the Spirit of the Lord fell upon him he 
paid no attention either to Gill or Fuller, and five of his hearers confessed Christ. 
He was one of the bravest and most successful advocates of civil and religious 
liberty, and did a noble work with the Virginia Baptists in that direction. He 
believed that God had called him to a special mission to stand by his brethren 
in his adopted State; so that we find him side by side with Harris, Ford, 
Williams, Waller and others on every occasion where an inch of ground could be 
gained. He entered the State too late to suffer by persecution as a prisoner, but 
he was there in the thickest of the legal fight. To use his own words : ' The 




BAPTIST PATRIOTISM. 409 

dragon roared with hideous peals, but was not red ; the beast appeared formi- 
dable, but was not scarlet colored,' and his Virginia chronicles show that he was 
right. 

Scarcely was the first shot fired at Lexington, when every Baptist on the con- 
tinent sprang to his feet and hailed its echo as the pledge of deliverance, as well 
from domestic as foreign oppressors. They were amongst the first to suffer and to 
sacrifice, and then their enemies were mean enough to charge them with ingratitude 
to the king who had interposed for their help in Massachusetts. But nothing 
moved them from their steadfastness ; hence, wherever the British standard was 
triumphant, their pastors were obliged to flee from their flocks, their meeting- 
houses were destroyed, and they were hated of all men. In common with all 
Whigs they were traitors to the crown, and the State Churches in New England and 
Virginia rendered it hard for them as fellow-patriots to fight comfortably at their 
side, because they set at naught religions exactions which these regarded in force, 
inflexible as laws of Media and Persia. It required plain, honest men, of Leland's 
will and nerve, to meet this state of things, and he never flinched, nor did his 
"Virginia brethren. They organized their resistance as a denomination, and in May, 
1775, sixty Churches met at the Dover Church, when their representatives resolved 
to address the Convention which Virginia had called to consider the state of the 
country. The address of the Baptists is spread upon the Journal of this political 
body. It states that they were alarmed at the oppressions which hung over America, 
and had determined that war should be made with Great Britain, that many of their 
brethren had enlisted as soldiers, and many more were ready to do so, and that they 
would encourage their young ministers to serve as chaplains in the army which 
should resist Great Britain. Also, they declared that ' Toleration by the civil gov- 
ernment is not sufficient ; that no State religious establishment ought to exist ; that 
all religious denominations ought to stand upon the same footing; and that to all 
alike the protection of the government should be extended, securing to them the 
peaceable enjoyment of their own religious principles and modes of worship.' 
These positions they argued and fortified at length, and they sent this memorial 
to the Convention by a Committee composed of Jeremiah "Walker, John Williams 
and George Roberts. This Convention instructed the Virginia delegates in Con- 
gress to declare American independence on May 15th. 1776. Our brethren were 
wise in their generation ; their deputation succeeding in enlisting Jefferson, Madison, 
and Patrick Henry, in their cause of full religious freedom. Dr. Hawks, in 
his ' History of the Episcopal Church in Virginia,' says : ' The Baptists were not 
slow in discovering the advantageous position in which the political troubles 
of the country had placed them. Their numerical strength was such as to 
make it important to both sides to secure their influence; they knew this, and 
therefore determined to turn the circumstances to their profit as a sect. Perse- 
cution had taught them not to love the establishment, and now they saw before them 



410 DESPERATE CONTESTS FOR FREEDOM. 

a reasonable prospect of overturning it entirely. In their Association they had 
calmly discussed the matter, and resolved on their course ; in this course they were 
consistent to the end.' 

The bitterest persecutions which they had endured ran through the twelve 
years between 1763 and 1775, and they gained their full freedom only point by 
point and inch by inch ; as is evident from the fact that all which the Convention 
could be induced to do, under the lead of the three great statesmen named, was to 
return a complimentary answer to the Baptists, and to pass an order that the minis- 
ters of other denominations should be placed on the same footing as chaplains of the 
Virginian army with those of the Episcopal Church. But this was really the first 
step gained toward equality by our Baptist brethren. A second, and much more 
important one, was taken in 1776, when under the same influences the Virginia 
Declaration of Bights was adopted, June 12th, the XVIth Article of which lays 
the Baptist principle of soul-liberty as the corner-stone of Virginia's govern- 
ment.- This was followed by a general petition that all sects should be exempted 
from legal taxes for the support of any one particular Chui'ch, and on October 
7th, 1776, the State salaries of the Episcopal clergy were suspended. Jefferson 
says that : ; The first Republican Legislature which met in 1776 was crowded with 
petitions to abolish this spiritual tyranny. These brought on the severest contest 
in which I was ever engaged,' and lie adds that the measure to suspend this and 
certain other old laws touching the established Church was carried only after 'Des- 
perate contests ' in the Committee of the whole house, ' almost daily from the 11th 
of October to the 5th of December.' It was not until 1779 that these salaries paid 
by legal taxation were abolished forever. 

During the struggle to abolish the State religion there arose a fear in the 
minds of many devout people, that Christianity itself might fall, or be so far im- 
paired as to endanger the safety of the State, which is founded on true morality 
and religion. Even Batrick Henry felt some alarm here, champion as he was 
for religious liberty. He looked upon the success of the Republican movement, 
and rightly, as depending upon the virtue of the people, without which it must 
miserably fail. He saw that the influence of the war would be corrupting, that 
the country was threatened with the destructive ideas of France, and the religious 
teachers of the country were so poorly supported that he was alarmed, for he had 
never seen the working of the voluntary system on a large scale. In common, 
therefore, with many others, he caught the idea that the State authorities should 
remlate religion by imposing a tax on all its citizens, leaving each person at liberty 
to appropriate his tax to the support of his own Church. This measure seemed 
healthful to and was- supported by nearly all Christian denominations in Virginia 
except the Baptists, who refused to be taxed by the State even for the support 
of their own Churches. They took this ground on principle, namely : That the 
State had no jurisdiction in the matter, as the question of religion was left amongst 






BAPTIST REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS. 411 

Lis inalienable rights in the hands of every man, subject to his choice, and that 
■Christianity needed no State support by compulsory measures ; therefore, it was 
•an abuse and a usurpation of power over the citizen for the State to touch the 
subject at all. 

They said in their remonstrance : ' Who does not see that the same authority 
which can establish Christianity in exclusion of all other religions may establish, 
with the same ease, any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects ? ' 
They argued that an established Church destroys all equality before the law, in the 
matter of religion, as it imposes burdens on some and exempts others. They insisted 
that the liberties of man and the prosperity of the Commonwealth required Virginia 
to renounce all interference in the religion of her citizens. In consequence of their 
resistance the Assessment Bill was defeated, and Dr. Hawks writes : ' The Baptists 
were the principal promoters of this work, and, in truth, aided more than any other 
denomination in its accomplishment.' 

A volume would be necessary for a full detail of the service which the Baptists 
rendered to their country, in her civic and military departments, during the Revolu- 
tionary War. A few individual cases may serve to illustrate the general interest 
which they took in the issue. In Virginia, Capt. M'Clanahan, a minister of Cul- 
peper County, raised a military company of Baptists, with whom he served on the 
field both as captain and chaplain. Howe says that the Legislature had invited the 
formation of such companies 'under officers of their own principles.' 4 Semple tells 
us that Rev. David Barrow took his musket and did good service for his country in 
the conflict, winning great honor for himself also. Dr. Cone states that his grand- 
father, Col. Joab Houghton, while attending worship in the Baptist meeting-house 
at Hopewell, N. J., met a messenger out of breath with the news of the defeat at 
Lexington. He kept silence till the services were closed, then in the open lot 
before the sanctuary detailed to the congregation: 'The story of the cowardly 
murder at Lexington by the royal troops, the heroic vengeance following hard upon 
it, the retreat of Percy, and the gathering of the children of the Pilgrims around 
the beleagured hills of Boston. Then pausing, and looking over the silent crowd, 
he said slowly: "Men of New Jersey, the red coats are murdering our brethren 
in New England. Who follows me to Boston ? " Every man in that audience 
stepped out into line and answered, " I ! " There was not a coward nor a traitor in 
old Hopewell meeting-house that day.' Col. Houghton continued in the army to the 
close of the war and fought valiantly. At one time a band of marauding Hessians 
had entered a New Jersey house at Moore's Mill, to plunder it, having stacked their 
arms at the door. He seized their arms and made their leader and a dozen men his 
prisoners, almost in sight of the British army. He was a member of the Hopewell 
Baptist Church, and died in 1795. 

General Scriven, of Georgia, the grandson of Rev. William Scriven, was a 
brave soldier. After Savannah fell into the hands of the British forces, the officer 



412 THE OASPEE DESTROYED. 

in command ordered him to give up Sunbury also, and received the answer : ' Come 
and take it.' Afterwards he was slaughtered in an ambuscade of British and Tories 
at Laurel Hill. Colonel Mills, who commanded 1,000 riflemen with great skill at 
the battle of Long Island, was a deacon in the First Baptist Church, Philadelphia. 
Although captured with Generals Sullivan and Sterling, he was made a Brigadier- 
General for his valor. Colonel Loxley, who commanded the artillery at the battle 
of Germantown, of whom of it was said, ' he was always foremost when great guns 
were in question,' was a member of the same Church. John Brown, of Providence, 
R. I., brother to Nicholas, and a firm Baptist, owned twenty vessels liable to destruc- 
tion by the enemy. In 1772, when the British war vessel Gaspee entered Narra- 
ganset Bay, to enforce British revenue customs, she ran aground, whereupon Brown 
sent eight boats, armed by sixty-four men, under the command of Abraham Whip- 
ple, one of his ship-masters, to destroy her. On opening fire Lieutenant Duddington 
was wounded, the rest of the officers and crew left, and the Gaspee was blown up. 
It has been said that ' this was the first British blood shed in the War of Indepen- 
dence.' We have another great patriot in the person of John Hart, who was a rep- 
resentative of New Jersey in the Continental Congress, and signed the Declaration of 
Independence. On the 23d of October, 1770, he had taken a leading part in pass- 
ing the following resolution in the New Jersey Assembly : ' That no further pro- 
vision be made for the supply of His Majesty's troops stationed in this colony.' 
This resolution startled the people, and the Governor threatened the Assembly so 
leriously that it annulled this action and voted £500 for the use of the army. Hart 
stood firm, voted against reconsideration, and in April, 1771, sustained the resolu- 
tion, which was passed the second time. He was elected Speaker of the Ne^v Jersey 
Assembly after that State had declared itself free, and he was hunted as an arrant 
traitor. The Legislature was obliged to flee from place to place, its members hiding 
themselves as best they could, and Governor Parker says that when Hart returned 
to visit his home he found it deserted ; ' the health of his wife, to whom he was 
devotedly attached, impaired by the cares of a large family and the alarm created 
by the near approach of the Hessians, had given way, and she died in the absence 
of her husband. His children had fled, and were concealed in various places in the 
mountains. His crops had been consumed by the enemy, and his stock driven away. 
He was compelled to fly to save his life, and for weeks he was a fugitive, hunted 
from house to house, wandering through the forests and sleeping in caves.' When 
Washington crossed the Delaware, in the snow and hail and rain of that immortal 
night, December 25th, 1776, and found himself and his little band of heroes 
safe in Trenton the next morning, honest John Hart came forth from his hiding 
place, convened the Legislature for January 22d, 1777, and held his fidelity till his 
death, full of years and honors. He executed a deed to the Baptist Church 
at Hopewell, in 1771, giving the land on which their meeting-house is built, 
and led in the erection of the building where he and his family worshiped 



JOHN HART. 4 1 3 

God. On July 4th, 1865, the State of New Jersey erected a beautiful monu- 
ment, of Quincy granite, over his bones at Hopewell. He is represented as being 
tall and very prepossessing in person, very kind in his disposition, and he made a 
great favorite of his negro servant, Jack. Jack committed larceny on some of his 
master's goods in his absence, and many wished Hart to punish him ; but he said that, 
as he had confided all his movables to Jack's care, he must let the offense pass as a 
breach of trust. When he was secreted in the Sourland Mountains, in 1776, he 
rested where he could in the day-time, and slept at night in an out-house, with 
his companion, the family dog. A marginal note on the journal of the Legislature 
for 1779, and the probate of his will, show that he died in that year ; the first of 
these being May 11th, and the last May 23d. 

These few instances show the general tone of American patriotism amongst 
the American Baptists, for their ranks were almost unbroken on this subject. 
Judge Curwen "was an ardent Tory ; he mentions 926 persons of note who sym- 
pathized with the British, and a still more numerous array of Tories exiled by Colo- 
nial law; but, so far as is known, there is not the name of one Baptist on the list. 5 
Most of the officials of Bhode Island and about two fifths of her people were Bap- 
tists. In 1764 she formed a Committee of Correspondence, whose design it was to 
secure the co-operation of the other Colonies in maintaining their liberties. This 
chapter may w T ell close with a brief notice of several Baptist ministers who served 
as chaplains, for out of twenty-one whose names are now known, six of them, or 
nearly one third of the number, were our own brethren, who rendered marked serv- 
ice, some of them being of national reputation and influence. Mention may be 
made of : 

Hezekiah Smith, D.D., of Haverhill, Mass. He entered the army in 1776, 
and so noted did he become as a patriot that he not only attracted the notice of 
"Washington, but became his personal friend, corresponded freely with him after 
the war, and was visited by him at Haverhill in 1789. Smith set an example of 
bravery to the soldiers in battle, as well as of devotion to their country and purity 
of character. His recently published journal throws considerable light upon the 
movements of Gates in foiling Burgoyne's attempt to join Clinton, and on his over- 
throw at Stillwater and Saratoga, We have already spoken of 

Rev. John Gano, who was a patriot of the best order, as well as a noble pastor. 
He began his services in the army in Clinton's New York Brigade, and was inde- 
fatigable in animating his regiment at the battle of Chatterton's Hill. The army 
was in something of a panic, and with cool courage he took his post in what seemed 
a forlorn hope. Many were abandoning their guns and flying without firing a shot, 
so that a mere handful were holding their ground when he sprang to the front. 
He states that he knew his station in time of action to be with the surgeons, and he 
half apologizes for his daring, saying : ' In this battle I somehow got to the front of 
the regiment, yet I durst not quit my place for fear of dampening the spirits of 



-414 BAPTIST CHAPLAINS. 

the soldiers or bringing on myself an imputation of cowardice.' He was at Fort 
Montgomery when it was taken by storm, but knew nothing of fear. Webb, War- 
ren, Hall and Washington were all his personal friends. An interesting incident in 
his chaplaincy is related by Euttenbeer, in his ' History of Newburg.' News was 
received that hostilities had ceased and that the preliminary articles of peace were 
settled; and on April 19th, 17S3, Washington proclaimed peace from the 'New 
Building,' and called on the chaplains with the several brigades to render thanks to 
God. Both banks of the Hudson w r ere lined by the patriot hosts, with drum and 
fife, burnished arms and floating banners. At high noon thirteen guns from Fort 
Putnam awoke the echoes of the Highlands, and the army fired a volley. At that 
moment the hosts of freedom bowed before God in prayer, after which a hymn of 
thanksgiving floated from all voices to the Eternal throne. This building was not 
Washington's head-quarters, but was a large room for public assemblies, sometimes 
called the ' Temple,' located in New Windsor, between Newburg and West Point. 
Thatcher says in his ' Journal ' that when this touching scene occurred the proclama- 
tion made from the steps was followed by three huzzas, then prayer was offered to 
the Almighty Ruler of the world by Rev. John Gano, and an anthem was per- 
formed by voices and instruments. After these services the army returned to 
quartei's and spent the day in suitable festivities. Then, at sundown, the signal gun 
of Fort Putnam called the soldiers to arms and another volley of joy rang all along 
the line. This was three times repeated, cannon discharges followed with the flash- 
ing of thousands of fire-arms, and the beacons from the hill-tops, no longer ' harbiir 
gers of danger,' lighted up the gloom and rolled on the tidings of peace through 
New England and shed their radiance on the blood-stained field of Lexington. 3 
Every patriotic Christian heart in the nation joined in the thanksgiving to which 
this patriot Baptist pastor gave expression in the presence of his immortal Com- 
mander-in-chief. 

Rev. David Jones, born in Delaware, May 12th, 1736, was another eminent Bap- 
tist chaplain. He had been a student at the Hopewell Academy for three years, 
pastor at Freehold, N. J., and missionary to the Shawnee and Delaware Indians. 
At the outbreak of the war, however, he was pastor at Great Valley, Chester 
County, Pa. He was a bold and original thinker, and had highly offended many 
Tories in New Jersey by the free utterance of his Whig sentiments. The Conti- 
nental Congress appointed a day of fasting and prayer in 1675, when he preached a 
powerful sermon in defense of the war to Colonel Dewee's regiment, which exerted 
a powerful influence on the public mind when printed. He became Chaplain to 
Colonel St. Clair's regiment in 1776, and greatly aroused the patriotism of the sol- 
diers in a sermon just before the conflict at Ticonderoga. He served also under 
Gates and Wayne, and was so heroic that General Howe offered a reward for his 
capture, and one or more plots were laid to secure him, but failed. He preached 
to the army at Valley Forge, when the news came that France had recognized 



BAPTIST CHAPLAINS. 413 

American independence. It seems to have been his custom to preach as often as 
possible before going into battle, and he remained in the army until the surrender 
of Cornwallis, at Yorktown. When "Wayne was sent against the Indians, in 1794-96, 
he accompanied him as chaplain, and again in the same capacity he went through 
the war with Britain in 1812, under Generals Brown and Wilkinson. He was the 
father of Horatio Gates Jones, D.D., and grandfather of the present Hon. Horatio 
Gates Jones, of Philadelphia. 

Rev. William Vanhorn was another Baptist chaplain of note. His educa- 
tion had been committed to Dr. Samuel Jones, of Lower Dublin, Pa., and for thir- 
teen years he was pastor of the Church at Southampton, in that State. His life in 
the army appears to have been marked by consistency, piety and industry, rather 
than by stirring acts of enterprise and daring. For twenty-one years he was pastor 
of the Church at Scotch Plains, N. J., where he closed his useful life greatly be- 
loved by his flock. 

Rev. Charles Thompson ranked equally with his fellow-chaplains as a man of 
culture and vigor. He was born in New Jersey in 1748, and was the valedictorian 
of the first class which graduated from Rhode Island College under the Presidency 
of Dr. Manning, numbering seven, in 1769 ; he also succeeded the doctor as pastor 
at Warren. There he baptized Dr. William Williams, one of his classmates, 
who afterwards established the Academy at Wrentham. In 1778 the meet- 
ing-house and parsonage at Warren were burned by the British and Hessian troops, 
and Thompson entered the American army as chaplain, where he served for three 
years. He was a thorough scholar and a finished gentleman, winning great distinc- 
tion in the army. This exposed him to the special hatred of the enemy, who made 
him a prisoner of war and kept him on a guard-ship at Newport. He served many 
years as pastor at Swansea, and died of consumption in 1803. The last, and in some 
respects the most noted of our chaplains, was 

William Rogers, D.D. He was born in Rhode Island in 1751, and graduated 
in the same class with Thompson. He was the first student received at that college, 
entering at the age of fourteen, and on the day of his graduation delivered an ora- 
tion on benevolence. In 1772 he became pastor of the First Baptist Church at 
Philadelphia, and had been there three years when Pennsylvania raised her quota 
of soldiers for that province ; he was first appointed chaplain, and afterwards 
Brigade Chaplain in the Continental Army. In 1778 he accompanied General 
Sullivan in his expedition against the Six Nations, at the head of 3,000 troops gath- 
ered at Wyoming. They marched north to Tioga Point, then on the frontier. His 
eminent ability and refined manners placed him on relations of intimate friendship 
with General Washington, and made him an ornament in our Churches. For years 
he served as Professor of English and Oratory in the College of Philadelphia and in 
the University of Pennsylvania. In battle, in camp, in hospitals or in the pulpit 

and the professor's chair he was alike at home, and a blessing to all around him. 
29 



CHAPTER X. 

THE AMERICAN BAPTISTS AND CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY. 

DR. LEONARD BACON writes of the Baptists in his ' New England The- 
ocracy ' thus : ' It has been claimed for these Churches that from the age of 
the Reformation onward they have been always foremost and always consistent in 
maintaining the doctrine of religious liberty. Let me not be understood as calling 
in question their right to so great an honor.' 1 But until the American Revolution 
they had scant means, comparatively, to demonstrate the practical soundness of this 
claim. Yet when the field was open for experimental proof that it was well 
founded, they were not found faithless in their relations either to the free constitu- 
tions of the several States or to that of the United States. They had little to hope 
from most of their fellow-colonists, who had gone to the verge of their power in 
using all social and legal forces to persecute and destroy them as a religious body, 
and that phase of the question was solemnly considered by them. When Dr. Samuel 
Jones went as one of their committee to present their appeal to the Continental 
Congress he said : ' It seemed unreasonable to us that we should be called to stand 
up with them in defense of liberty, if, after all, it was to be a liberty for one party 
to oppress another.' The little Baptist colony of Rhode Island had more to lose and 
less to gain by revolution than any of her twelve sister colonies. Unlike Massachu- 
setts and Virginia, she had no Governor appointed by the Crown, who could veto 
her acts of legislation. Bancroft tells us that this State enjoyed after the revolu- 
tion, 2 ' a form of government under its charter so thoroughly republican that no 
change was required beyond a renunciation of the King's name, in the style of its 
public acts.' Revolution would imperil her largest liberties, while complete success 
in the attempt to secure independence of Britain would add little to the rights 
which she already possessed. But should she be conquered she must relinquish even 
these, for the Crown would appoint her a Governor and control her legislation, at 
least by the power of the veto. 

Yet no selfish consideration of this sort weighed with the Baptists of Rhode 
Island. They saw their brethren of other colonies oppressed more than they were r 
and as their own love of liberty was a genuine growth, they demanded it as the birth- 
right of all. Hence, they were as ready at once to resist encroachment upon the 
civil liberties of all the colonies as they had been to defy the unjust exactions of a 
spiritual tyranny upon themselves. They, therefore, carried with them into the 
struggle against civil oppression the same spirit which had moved them in resisting 






RHODE ISLAND AND VIRGINIA. 417 

all encroachment upon the liberties of the soul. Two months before the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and thirty-two days before Virginia renounced allegiance to 
the Crown, Rhode Island repudiated all allegiance to George III., May 4th, 1776 ; 
and immediately after the retreat of General Gage from Concord and Lexington, 
her Legislature voted to send 1,500 men to the scene of conflict. It is, therefore, a sig- 
nificant testimony to the character of the teaching of Williams and Clarke that the 
boon which they had given the Rhode Islanders, first the town-meeting and then 
the Colonial Assembly shorn of all power to touch the question of ' conscience ' 
and shut up to ' civil tilings,' should in the next century have borne such good fruit. 
Nearly five generations had passed since the colony was first planted, and now it 
was willing to imperil its own religious freedom in order to advance the political 
liberties of other communities. This brought no small strain upon its unselfish 
patriotism. 

The Baptists of Virginia took an equally resolute step in favor of independ- 
ence, but though under different circumstances, not a jot less honorable. Not- 
withstanding their persecutions by the Colony itself, the moment that the State 
Convention met to determine the duty of the Colony, sixty Baptist Churches said 
to this civil body : Strike the blow ! ' Make military resistance to Great Britain, in 
her unjust invasion, tyrannical oppression and repeated hostilities,' and we will sus- 
tain you, ministers and people. Virginia had no sympathy with Puritanism, 
and in her old devotion to the Stuarts had refused to recognize the authority 
of the Commonwealth. For this Massachusetts had prohibited all intercourse 
with her, and under the administration of George III., when Patrick Henry in- 
troduced his famous Fifth Resolution into the Virginia Legislature, containing 
the doctrine of revolution, denouncing the Stamp Act, and refusing taxation 
without representation, the leading men of that body cried with horror, ' Trea- 
son ! treason ! ' Campbell, in his history of Virginia, says : ' Speaker Robinson, 
Peyton Randolph, Richard Bland, Edward Pendleton, George Wythe, and 
all the leaders in the House and proprietors of large estates made a strenuous 
resistance.' 3 True, the wonderful eloquence of Henry secured a majority for the 
resolution, but the men who voted for it were so alarmed by the cry of treason 
which it provoked that the next day they secured its erasure from the records. One 
of the paradoxes of American history has been that, despite the sentiment of many 
of its leading men thus loyal to the Crown, Virginia should have finally taken front 
rank amongst the revolting colonies. 

Jefferson, in his ' Notes on Virginia,' incidentally supplies the clue to this prob- 
lem. He states that at the time of the Revolution two-thirds of her population had 
become Dissenters ; for the most part they were Quakers, Presbyterians and Bap- 
tists. By the intolerable sufferings and indefatigable labors of the Baptist preach- 
ers they had cherished and diffused their own love of libei'ty throughout the whole 
colony for half a century. Their memorial to the Convention had deeper root 



418 THE BAPTISTS AND THE VIRGINIA CONVENTION. 

than the feeling of the hour ; it was grounded in those evangelical convictions 
which were shared by a majority of the people of Virginia. That Virginia cast 
her Koyalist antecedents aside and loyally espoused the cause of the revolution was 
largely due to the fact that Baptist suffering, preaching and democratic practice had 
educated her people for the issue. Thomas Jefferson, possibly an advanced Unita- 
rian ; Patrick Henry, a devout Presbyterian ; and James Madison, thought to be a 
liberal Episcopalian, felt the throb of the public heart, saw that its patriotism was 
founded upon religious conviction, and, like wise men, instead of stemming the 
strong tide they gave it their leadership, under which it swept on, notwithstanding 
the opposition of English rectors and the entangling traditions of a grinding hier- 
archy. The Baptists of Virginia, however, did not rush hastily into this struggle, 
nor were they without a definite purpose ; they counted the cost and anticipated the 
legitimate result of their position. The records of the Colonial Convention, June 
20th, 1776, say that : 

' A petition of sundry persons of the Baptist Church, in the County of Prince 
William, whose names are thereunto subscribed, was presented to the Convention 
and read, setting forth that at a time when this colony, with the others, is contend- 
ing for the civil rights of mankind, against the enslaving schemes of a powerful 
enemy, they are persuaded the strictest unanimity is necessary among ourselves ; 
and that every remaining cause of division may, if possible, be removed, they think 
it their duty to petition for the following religious privileges, which they have not 
yet been indulged with in this part of the world, to wit : 

' That they be allowed to worship God in their own way, without interruption ; 
that they be permitted to maintain their own ministers and none others ; that they 
may be married, buried and the like without paying the clergy of other denomina- 
tions ; that, these things granted, they will gladly unite with their brethren, and to 
the utmost of their ability promote the common cause. 

Ordered, that the said petition be referred to the Committee of Propositions 
and Grievances ; that they inquire into the allegations thereof and report the same, 
with their opinions thereupon, to the Convention.' 

The Baptists concealed nothing. For full liberty, civil and religious, they were 
ready to give their lives and all that they had, but for less they would risk nothing : 
they might as well be the civil vassals of Britain as the religious vassals of a republic 
in Virginia. This was understood all around, and hence they kept influential com- 
missioners in constant attendance on the Legislature and Conventions of the State, 
from the beginning to the close of the struggle for perfect religious freedom ; or, 
as Bishop Meade expresses it, when their full rights were secured : ' The warfare 
begun by the Baptists seven and twenty years before was now finished.' 

They had a great advantage in the fact that the three men who were the most 
prominently identified with the Revolutionary cause in Virginia espoused their 
cause and co-operated with them — Jefferson, Henry and Madison. This was not 
due, perhaps, on their part, to the same deep religious conviction which actuated the 
Baptists. But in their immense breadth of mind, logical adherence to conclusions 
drawn from those premises which justified the Revolution, brought these mighty 



JEFFERSON AND TEE VIRGINIA BAPTISTS. 419 

men to the same positions. Jefferson comprehended Baptist aims perfectly, for 
he was in perpetual intercourse with their leading men, and they intrusted him with 
the charge of their public documents. His mother was an Episcopalian, but his 
favorite aunt, her sister, Mrs. Woodson, was a Baptist. These two sisters were the 
daughters of Isham Randolph, Mrs. Woodson residing in Goochland County. 
When young he loved to visit her house and accompany her to the Baptist Church, 
of which she and her husband were members. It is through the members of his uncle's 
and aunt's family, as well as through the Madisons, that the tradition has come 
down that he caught his first views of a democratic form of government while 
attending these meetings. A letter lies before the writer from Mrs. O. P. Moss, of 
Missouri, whose husband was a direct descendant of the Woodson family ; his 
mother knew Jefferson intimately, and has kept the tradition alive in the family. 
She says that ' when grown to manhood these impressions became so fixed that upon 
them he formulated the plan of a free government and based the Declaration of 
Independence.' Jefferson himself speaks of his close intimacy with the Baptists in 
the following epistle, already referred to in Chapter Till : 

' To the members of the Baptist Church of Buck Mountain, in Albemarle ; 
Monticello, April 13th, 1809 : 

' I thank you, my friends and neighbors, for your kind congratulations on my 
return to my native home, and of the opportunities it will give me of enjoying, 
amidst your affections, the comforts of retirement and rest. Your approbation of 
my conduct is the more valued as you have best known me, and is an ample reward 
for any services I may have rendered. We have acted together from, the origin to 
the end of a memorable revolution, and we have contributed, each in the line allotted 
to us, our endeavors to render its issues a permanent blessing to our country. That 
our social intercourse may, to the evening of our days, be cheered and cemented by 
witnessing the freedom and happiness for which we have labored, will be my con- 
stant prayer. Accept the offering of my affectionate esteem and respect.' 4 

Elder John Leland speaks of his intimacy with Jefferson. In his Address on an 
Elective Judiciary, he found it necessary to repel certain charges against his beau ideal 
statesman, and says : ' I lived in Virginia, from December 1776, until April, 1791, 
not far from Monticello ; yet I never heard a syllable of either of these crimes.' 5 
There was a oneness of views and a mutual esteem in all that relates to religious 
liberty between him and the Baptists. John Leland was in constant communication 
with him on this subject, and he only spoke their sentiments when he said of Jeffer- 
son, that ' By his writing and administration, he has justly accpiired the title of the 
Apostle of Liberty.' The replies of Jefferson to three Baptist Associations, and to 
the Baptists of Virginia in General Meeting assembled, speak of the satisfaction 
which the review of his times gave him, in remembering his long and earnest co- 
operation with them in achieving the religious freedom of America. 

Early in his life Patrick Henry evinced his deep sympathy with them on the 
same point, for Semple says of the immortal patriot and orator and of the efforts to 
attain full liberty of conscience : 



420 PATRICE HENRY AND THE BAPTISTS. 

' It was in making these attempts that they were so fortunate as to interest in 
their behalf the celebrated Patrick Henry ; being always the friend of liberty, he 
only needed to be informed of their oppression — without hesitation, he stepped for- 
ward to their relief. From that time, until the day of their complete emancipation 
from the shackles of tyranny, the Baptists found in Patrick Henry an unwavering 
friend.' 6 

It is supposed that he drew up the noble petition of the Presbytery of Hanover, 
addressed to the Virginia Colonial Convention, in favor of religious liberty, Oct. 7th, 
1776, and if he did, it is enough to render his name immortal, for no abler document 
on the subject was ever submitted to that or any other body. William Wirt 
Henry, his grandson, claims, that his renowned ancestor was the real author of the 
sixteenth section of the Virginia Bill of Rights, which guarantees perfect religious 
liberty. George Mason, Edmund Randolph and Patrick Henry were all members 
of the Committee that framed it ; and Randolph says, that when Mason submitted 
his draft for the consideration of the Committee, he had not made proper provisions 
for religious liberty. Whereupon, Patrick Henry proposed the fifteenth and six- 
teenth sections in these words : 

' That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any 
people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and 
virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles. That religion, or the 
duty we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only 
by reason and conviction, and not by force or violence ; and, therefore, that all men 
should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise of i-eligion, according to the dic- 
tates of conscience, unpunished and unrestrained by the magistrates, unless, under 
the color of religion, any man disturb the peace, the happiness, or the safety of so- 
ciety ; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, 
and charity toward each other.' 

Mr. Madison, however, who was also a member of the Committee, detected seri- 
ous danger lurking in the word ' toleration,' and moved this amendment, which 
was adopted, first by the Committee, and on May 6, 1776, by the Convention : 

' That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of 
discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or vio- 
lence ; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion ac- 
cording to the dictates of conscience ; and that it is the mutual duty of all to 
practice Christian forbearance, love and charity toward each other.' 

J.efferson was not in the Convention which framed this Bill, but nine years 
afterwards he served on a Committee of the General Assembly to revise the laws 
for the new State, when he submitted the following, which was adopted, Dec. 16, 
1785, and is still the fundamental law of Virginia. 

' An Act to establish Religious Freedom : ' 

' Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to 
frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall 
be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall other- 
wise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief ; but that all men shall be 
free to profess and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion, 
and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.' 



JAMES MADISON AND THE BAPTISTS. 421 

James Madison had as close relationship to the Baptists as his two illustrious 
peers, and made himself intimately acquainted with their radical views on the sub- 
ject of religious equality. Honest John Leland says of him : ' From a child, he was 
a pattern of sobriety, sturdy and inflexible justice. From an intimate acquaintance 
with him, I feel satisfied that all the State of Massachusetts, for a bribe, would not 
buy a single vote of him. A saying of his is fresh in my memory : " It is ridicu- 
lous for a man to make use of underhand means to carry a point, although he should 
know the point is a good one ; it would be doing evil that good might come." This 
saying of his better describes the man than my pen can do.' 7 General Madison, his 
brother, was a member of a Baptist Church, and their family took a deep interest in 
the struggles of the denomination. James was one of the youngest members of 
the Convention which adopted the Bill of Rights, and it required no small judg- 
ment and nerve to oppose the idea of ' toleration ' on abstract principles there, or to 
support the tenet that 'all men are entitled to the free exercise of religion, accord- 
ing to their own consciences.' One measure succeeded another, in opposition to the 
legally established religion of Virginia, in which the Baptists took the leading part 
at times, and on some measures stood entirely alone, until in the main, through 
the influence of these three great statesmen, the last step was taken in 1802 ; the 
glebes were ordered to be sold in payment of the public debt, on the ground that 
they had been purchased by a public tax, and belonged to the State. Thus ended 
the struggle for religious liberty in Virginia, and with the disappearance of the Es- 
tablished Church, the last vestige of ecclesiastical tyranny was wiped from the 
statute-books of that State. 

The most worthy Baptist writers have never claimed that their Baptist fathers 
achieved this grand result alone, nor could such a claim be sustained. They were 
the most numerous body of dissenters in Virginia, and were a unit in this effort, 
but they were earnestly aided by all the Quakers and most of the Presbyterians, as 
lesser but influential bodies. ' Tories ' and ' traitors ' were held at a large discount 
in both these denominations, and there were few of them. Indeed, so far as ap- 
pears, the twenty-seven Presbyterians who met at Charlotte, ~N. C, May, 1775, to 
represent the County of Mecklenburg in patriotic convention, were the first 
American body which declared itself ' a free and independent people ; (who) are, 
and of right ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing association, under the con- 
trol of no power other than that of our God and the general government of the 
Congress.' Besides, at that time, there were good reasons why the Quakers, Pres- 
byterians and Baptists should stand firmly together in favor of religious liberty. 
From 1749, a plan had been openly pushed in England, to force an American Epis- 
copate on all the American Colonies; it excited the deepest alarm in all the non- 
Episcopal Churches, and did. much to fan the revolutionary flame. In 1773 the 
' Quebec A.ct,' to prevent Canada from uniting with the thirteen colonies, had given 
full freedom of worship and right of property to the Roman Catholic Church there. 



422 AN AMERICAN EPISCOPATE. 

England also enlarged that province, by extending its lines to the Mississippi on the 
west, and the Ohio on the south, so that the five States, now north-west of the Ohio, 
were then included in Canada. Most of the Protestants in the thirteen colonies re- 
garded this as an English attempt to establish that Church. As to this Protestant 
Episcopate, Graham says, in his ' Colonial History of the United States.' (ii., 194) : 

' The most politic of all the schemes that were at this time proposed in the 
British Cabinet, was a project of introducing an ecclesiastical establishment, derived 
from the model of the Church of England, and particularly the order of the bishops, 
into North America. The pretext assigned for this innovation was, that many non- 
juring clergymen of the Episcopal persuasion, attached to the cause of the Pretender, 
had recently emigrated from Britain to America, and that it was desirable to create 
a board of ecclesiastical dignitaries for the purpose of controlling their proceedings 
and counteracting their influence ; but doubtless it was intended, in part, at least, to 
answer the ends of strengthening royal prerogative in America — of giving to the 
State, through the Church of England, an accession of influence over the colonists — 
and of imparting to their institutions a greater degree of aristocratical character and 
tendency. The views of the statesmen by whom this design was entertained were 
inspired by the suggestions of Butler, Bishop of Durham, and were confirmed and 
seconded by Seeker, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the society instituted for the 
propagation of the Gospel. This society had received very erroneous impressions of 
the religious character of the colonists in general, from some worthless and incapable 
missionaries, which it sent to America ; and Seeker, who partook of these impres- 
sions, had promulgated them from the pulpit in a strain of vehement and presumpt- 
uous invective. Such demeanor by no means tended to conciliate the favor of the 
Americans to the proposed ecclesiastical establishment. From the intolerance and 
bitterness of spirit disclosed by the chief promoters of the scheme, it was natural to 
forebode a total absence of moderation in the conduct of it.' 

This iniquitous plan, added to all the other oppressions of Britain, alarmed New 
England, for, as John Adams said : ' The objection was not merely to the office of 
a bishop, though even that was dreaded, but to the authority of Parliament, on 
which it must be founded. ... If Parliament can erect dioceses and appoint 
bishops, they may introduce the whole hierarchy, establish tithes, forbid marriages 
and funerals, establish religion, forbid dissenters.' In 1768, the Assembly of Mas- 
sachusetts appointed its Speaker, Mr. dishing, James Otis, Mr. Adams, John Han- 
cock and five others, a Committee on the Consideration of Public Affairs. In treat- 
ing of this grievance they say to Mr. Deberdt, the agent of Massachusetts in England : 

' The establishment of a Protestant episcopate in America is also very zealously 
contended for; and it is very alarming to a people whose fathers, from the hard- 
ships which they suffered under such an establishment, were obliged to fly their 
native country into a wilderness, in order peaceably to enjoy their privileges, civil 
and religious. Their being threatened with loss of both at once, must throw them 
into a disagreeable situation. We hope in God such an establishment may never 
take place in America, and we desire you would strenuously oppose it. The reve- 
nue raised in America, for aught we can tell, may be as constitutionally applied to- 
wards the support of prelacy, as of soldiers and pensioners.' 8 

It is not needful to quote authorities to show that Connecticut, New York, and 
New Jersey were specially excited on the subject, but it may be stated that Virginia 



VIRGINIA RESISTED THIS EPISCOPACY. 423 

resented the aggression as warmly as any of her sister colonies. Boucher, the Epis- 
copal historian in Virginia, espoused the scheme warmly, and in a sermon on 'The 
American Episcopate,' preached in Caroline County, Va., in 1771, says : 

' The constitution of the Church of England is approved, confirmed and adopted 
by our laws and interwoven with them. No other form of Church government than 
that of the Church of England would be compatible with the form of our civil govern- 
ment. No other colony has retained so large a portion of the monarchical part of the 
British constitution as Virginia ; and between that attachment to monarchy and the 
government of the Church of England, there is a strong connection. ... A levelling 
republican spirit in the Church naturally leads to republicanism in the State ; neither 
of which would hitherto have been endured in this ancient dominion. . . . And 
when it is recollected that till now the opposition to an American episcopate has 
been confined chiefly to the demagogues and independents of the New England 
provinces, but that it is now espoused with much warmth by the people of Virginia, 
it requires no great depth of political sagacity to see what the motives and views of 
the former have been, or what will be the consequences of the defection of the latter.' 9 

The tobacco crop in Virginia was light in 1755 and again in 1758, and the price 
ran up. Debts had been paid in that staple, but the Assembly decreed that they 
might now be paid in money at the rate of two pence for a pound of tobacco. The 
salaries of sixty-five parish ministers were payable in tobacco, and at this rate they 
were heavy losers. Through Sherlock, Bishop of London, they induced the Council 
there to pronounce this law void and commenced suits to recover the difference be- 
tween twopence per pound and the value of the tobacco. As a lawyer, Patrick Henry 
took sides against the parsons. In the case of Maury, who was to be paid in 16,000 
pounds of tobacco, he raised the issue that the King in Council could not annul the 
law of Virginia. This was his plea in part : 

'Except you are disposed yourselves to rivet the chains of bondage on your own 
necks, do not let slip the opportunity now offered of making such an example of 
the Rev. plaintiff, as shall hereafter be a warning to himself and his brothers not to 
have the temerity to dispute the validity of laws authenticated by the only sanction 
which can give force to laws for the government of this colony, the authority of its 
own legal representatives, with its council and governor.' 10 

When the jury fixed the damages at one penny, the Bishop of London said that 
the ' rights of the clergy and the authority of the king must stand or fall together,' 
and so a joint constitutional and ecclesiastical question met the new question of an 
episcopate at the first step. This question brought the Presbyterians and Baptists to 
common ground, with slight exceptions. The Presbvterians had not been true to 
the principle of full religious liberty in the Old World more than the Congrega- 
tionalists had been in the New, and thousands of them had found a home in Vir- 
ginia as early as 1738, under the promise of protection from that colony. They 
came to have a touch of fellow-feeling with their suffering Baptist brethren, hence 
they were able to say in their Hanover Memorial, of 1777 : ' In this enlightened age, 
and in a land where all of every denomination are united in the most strenuous 



424 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 

efforts to be free, we hope and expect that our representatives will cheerfully con- 
cur in removing every species of religious as well as civil bondage. Certain it is, 
that every argument for civil liberty gains additional strength when applied to 
liberty in the concerns of religion.' ' Honor to whom honor,' the Bible demands. 

While "this contest was in progress, however, another, quite as warm and vastly 
more importaut, was waged in regard to the Constitution of the United States, and 
chiefly through the same agencies. This great civil document was adopted by the 
Constitutional Convention and submitted for ratification to the several States, Sep- 
tember 17th, 1787, nine States being needed to ratify the same. Immediately it met 
with strong opposition from all the States, some for one reason and some for another. 
Its only provision on the subject of religion was found in Article YI, thus : ' No 
religious Test shall ever be required, as a Qualification to any office or public Trust 
under the United States.' Great dissatisfaction prevailed with many of its pro- 
visions, and there was serious danger of its rejection for a time. Dissatisfaction 
with this provision lodged with the Baptists in all the States, but Virginia became 
their great battle-field. On the 7th of March, 1788, the representatives of all their 
Clmrches met in their General Committee in Goochland, and the minutes of the 
meeting say : The first Religious Political subject that was taken up was : ' Whether 
the new Federal Constitution, which had now lately made its appearance in public, 
made sufficient provision for the secure enjoyment of religious liberty ; on which it 
was agreed unanimously that it did not.' Many of the political and social leaders of 
Virginia were opposed to the Constitution, and amongst them Patrick Henry, who 
resisted its adoption in the Virginia Convention, because, as he phrased his difficulty, 
it 'squinted toward monarchy,' and gave no guarantee of religious liberty. 

Here a pleasant incident may be noticed, in which John Leland figures very 
honorably. James Madison led the Virginia party which favored ratification, but 
was in Philadelphia during the election of delegates to the State Convention, en- 
gaged with John Jay and Alexander Hamilton in preparing that memorable series 
of political papers, written in defense of the Constitution, and know as the ' Feder- 
alist.' When he returned to Virginia, he found that Leland had been nominated in 
Orange, his own county, by the party opposed to ratification, against himself, as the 
delegate in favor of that measure. Governor George N. Briggs, of Massachusetts, 
says, that Leland told him that Madison called on him and carefully explained the 
purposes of the- Constitution with his arguments in its support. The opposing can- 
didates soon met at a political meeting, in the presence of most of the voters, when 
Madison mounted a hogshead of tobacco, and for two hours addressed his fellow- 
citizens in a calm, candid and statesmanlike manner, presenting his side of the case 
and meeting all the arguments of his opponents. Though he was not eloquent, the 
people listened with profound respect, and said Leland : ' When he left the hogshead, 
and my friends called for me, I took it, and went in for Mr. Madison.' 'A noble 
Christian patriot,' remarks Governor Briggs ; ' that single act, with the motives 



ITS PROPOSED AMENDMENT. 425 

which prompted it and the consequences which followed it, entitled him to the re- 
spect of mankind.' Leland's advocacy of Madison's claim to a seat in the Conven- 
tion led directly to the adoption of the Constitution by Virginia, for at the time of 
his election it was confirmed by only eight States. Hence, the ninth was 
absolutely necessary, and at the moment every thing appeared to turn on the 
action of Virginia. New Hampshire, however, approved the instrument on the 
21st of June, but five days before Virginia, and New York followed one month 
later, namely, on July 26th, 1788. Up to this time, none of the other States had 
proposed the full expression of religious liberty in the organic law of the United 
States ; this honor was reserved for Virginia. But the struggle was a hard one, and 
Madison, who at first insisted on its ratification precisely as it was, was obliged to 
save it by shifting his position. Henry submitted a number of amendments, de- 
manding that they be engrafted into the instrument before it received Virginia's 
sanction. Amongst these was a Bill of Rights, of which the following was the 
20th section, namely : 

' The religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of dis- 
charging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence ; 
and therefore all men have an equal, natural, and inalienable right to the free exer- 
cise of religion according to the dictates of conscience, and that no particular sect 
or society ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others.' 

At last Mr. Madison conceded the need of amendments, but urged the danger 
of disunion and the jeopardy of losing the Constitution, and recommended that the 
Convention ratify it then, which it proceeded to do ; but in connection with that 
act it also recommended the amendments and directed its representatives in Con- 
gress to urge their embodiment in the Constitution. On the 26th of June, 1788, 
Virginia ratified the great charter, but by the narrow majority of eight votes out 
of 168. From that moment a most exciting controversy arose in other States on 
the subject of so altering the Federal Constitution as to make it the fundamental 
law, providing for religious liberty and equality as the right of all the inhabitants 
of the land. The Baptists of the whole country aroused themselves and opened a 
simultaneous movement in that direction. Those of Virginia sent Leland to their 
brethren of New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and other States to solicit their 
co-operation, which was granted with but few exceptions. There seems to have been 
a direct union of effort between the Baptists and the Virginia statesmen on this sub- 
ject, although the Virginian leaders were divided on other subjects. Patrick Henry 
became the leader in the next State Legislature and induced that body to memorial- 
ize Congress to amend the new Constitution. But fearing that after all Mr. Madison 
might not heartily sustain that measure, he defeated Madison's election to the United 
States Senate, and secured the return of Richard Henry Lee and William Grayson, 
who were pledged to sustain the amendments. Madison was then elected to the 
lower house of Congress from his own district, under the pledge that he would sus- 



426 WASHINGTON AND THE BAPTISTS. 

tain them there. At this stage the Baptists consulted with Madison as to what 
they had better do under the circumstances, and he recommended them to address 
General Washington, the new President of the Kepublic, on the question. This 
suggestion they followed. They drew up a formal and well-digested presentation 
of the case, drafted, it is said, by Elder Leland, and sent it to General Washington 
by a special delegation. This paper is too long to transcribe here, but a synopsis 
may be given. It was entitled an '■Address of the Committee of the United, Baptist 
Churches of Virginia, assembled in the City of Richmond, 8th August, 1789, to the 
President of the United States of America.'' After a full review of the terrible 
conflicts and sacrifices of the Revolution, and the acknowledgment of debt on the 
part of the country to his great skill and leadership, they say : 

' The want of efficiency in the confederation, the redundancy of laws, and 
their partial administration in the States, called aloud for a new arrangement of our 
systems. The wisdom of the States for that purpose was collected in a grand con- 
vention, over which you, sir, had the honor to preside. A national government in 
all its parts was recommended as the only preservation of the Union, which plan of 
government is now in actual operation. When the Constitution first made it appear- 
ance in Virginia, we, as a society, feared that the liberty of conscience, dearer to us 
than property or life, was not sufficiently secured. Perhaps our jealousies were- 
heightened by the usage we received in Virginia, under the regal government, when 
mobs, fines, bonds and prisons were our frequent repast. Convinced, on the one 
hand, that without an effective national government the States would fall into dis- 
union and all the subsequent evils ; and, on the other hand, fearing that we should 
be accessory to some religious oppression, should any one society in the Union pre- 
dominate over the rest ; yet, amidst all these inquietudes of mind, onr consolation 
arose from this consideration — the plan must be good, for it has the signature of a 
tried, trusty friend, and it' religious liberty is rather insecure in the Constitution, 
" the Administration will certainly prevent all oppression, for a Washington will 
preside." . . . Should the horrid evils that have been so pestiferous in Asia and 
Europe, faction, ambition, war, perfidy, fraud and persecution for conscience' sake, 
ever approach the borders of our happy nation, may the name and administration of 
our beloved President, like the radiant source of day, scatter all those dark clouds 
from the American hemisphere.' 

After gracefully expressing their gratitude for his ' great and unparalleled serv- 
ices,' and confiding him in prayer to the ' Divine Being,' the paper is signed : ' By 
order of the Committee, Samuel Harris, Chairman, and Peuben Ford, Cleric. 

General Washington's reply was addressed ' To the General Committee, repre- 
senting the United Baptist Churches in Virginia.'' After thanking them for their 
congratulations, and expressing his own gratitude to ' Divine Providence ' for bless- 
ing his public services, he proceeds to write thus : 

' If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution 
framed by the Convention where I had the honor to preside might possibly endanger 
the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never have placed 
my signature to it ; and if I could now conceive that the general government might 
ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you 
will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effect- 



THE CONSTITUTION AMENDED. 427 

ual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny and every species of religious 
persecution. For, you doubtless remember, I have often expressed ray sentiments 
that any man, conducting himself as a good citizen and being accountable to God 
alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshiping the Deity 
according to the dictates of his own conscience. While I recollect with satisfaction 
that the religious society of which you are members have been, throughout America, 
uniformly and almost unanimously the firm friends to civil liberty, and the persever- 
ing promoters of our glorious revolution, I cannot hesitate to believe that they will 
be the faithful supporters of a free yet efficient general government. Under this 
pleasing expectation, I rejoice to assure them that they may rely upon my best wishes 
and endeavors to advance their prosperity, 

' I am, gentlemen, your most obedient servant, 

'George Washing-ton.' 

A month after this correspondence James Madison, with the approval of Wash- 
ington, brought several Constitutional amendments before the House of Representa- 
tives, and amongst them moved the adoption of this : 'Article I. Congress shall 
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the 
people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of griev- 
ances.' The chief difference between the old Article VI and this amendment lay in 
the fact that in the first instance Congress was left at liberty to impose religious tests 
in other cases than those of ' office or public trust under the United States,' whereas, 
this amendment removed the power to make any 'law respecting an establishment of 
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.' This proposition met with great 
opposition in Congress, but it passed that body September 23d, 1789, and was sub- 
mitted to the several States for ratification. Eleven of the thirteen States adopted it 
between November 20th, 1789, and December 15th, 1791, New Jersey voting on the 
first of these dates and Virginia on the last, and all the rest between those periods 
excepting Connecticut and Massachusetts. Thus, the contemned, spurned and hated 
old Baptist doctrine of soul-liberty, for which blood had been shed for centuries, 
was not only engrafted into the organic law of the United States, but for the 
first time in the formation of a great nation it was made its chief corner-stone. For 
the first time on that subject the quiet, pungent old truth asserted its right to 
immortality as expressed by Scripture : ' The stone which the builders rejected is 
become the head-stone of the corner.' 

But this august event did not end the strife for religious freedom on American 
soil ; the battle must be still pressed on the soil of New England. Drs. James 
Manning, Samuel Stillman and Isaac Backus had work enough left in Massachusetts. 
The loyalty of all classes to the full principles of the Revolution was not so easily 
won, because a large body of the people there were not in favor of entire separation 
between Church and State. Even John Adams wrote : ' I am for the most liberal 
toleration of all denominations, but I hope Congress will never meddle with relig- 
ion further than to say their own prayers.' u Yet he thought it as impossible to 
' change the religious laws of Massachusetts as the movements of the heavenly 



428 THE CONTEST RENEWED IN MASSACHUSETTS. 

bodies.' 12 There was the same opposition in Massachusetts to the ratification of the 
United States Constitution that there was in Virginia, and much for the same rea- 
sons. Isaac Backus took about the same ground that Patrick Henry had taken 
in Virginia, because he could not see that it sufficiently guaranteed religious 
liberty. Manning and Stillman were wiser in their generation. Stillman had 
been chosen a delegate from Boston to the State Convention of Massachusetts, 
which was to accept or reject this instrument, a body numbering nearly 400 mem- 
bers. Manning hastened to Massachusetts, and for two weeks was indefatigable in 
argument and appeal to induce all Baptist delegates and other Baptists of influence 
to aid in securing first all that the unamended Constitution did secure. It was a 
very grave crisis, the public spirit was in a feverish state, and these two great men 
had their hands full to secure the full support of their own brethren. They knew that 
this document had not secured everything needful to them, but they also knew 
that such a revolution could not go backward excepting through alienation be- 
tween the States. The Convention was in session for a month, half of which time 
Stillman and Manning were at work, and when the final vote was taken the Consti- 
tution was ratified by 187 to 168 votes. Massachusetts adopted the Constitution of 
the United States February 6th, 1788. After the vote, in which the Baptists held 
the balance of power, John Hancock, the President of the Convention, invited Dr. 
Manning to return thanks to God, and it is said that the lofty spirit of purity and 
patriotism which marked his prayer filled the Convention with reverence and awe. 
So far as the Massachusetts Baptists were concerned, this great opportunity was 
neither missed nor mismanaged, but was made an important step toward absolute 
freedom. Massachusetts had formed a State Constitution in 1780, and in that Con- 
vention the Baptists contended with pertinacity for their religious rights. Rev. 
Noah Alden, a lineal descendant of the Plymouth family, was a member of this 
Convention, and at that time pastor of the Baptist Church at Bellingham. He was 
also a member of the Convention which framed the Constitution of the United 
States. When the famous Massachusetts Bill of Rights was reported he moved to 
recommit the third article, which gave power to the rulers in religious affairs. He 
was made a member of a committee of seven to consider the subject, and although 
he could not secure equality before the law for all sects in Massachusetts, he did 
procure so much concession as to excite marvel at the time, it was so far in advance 
of anything that this State had previously known in religious liberality. It recog- 
nized the power of the civil rulers to provide for the support of religion in towns 
where such provision was not made voluntarily ; it required attendance on public 
worship, if there were any religious teachers ' on whose instructions they can con- 
scientiously and conveniently attend ' ; it provided that the people should ' have the 
exclusive right of electing their public teachers, and of contracting with them for 
their support and maintenance ; ' it gave the right of the hearer to apply his public 
payments of religious tax ' to the support of the public teacher or teachers of his 



THE MASSACHUSETTS BILL OF BIGHTS. 429 

own religious sect or denomination, provided there be any on whose instruction he 
attends,' and 'every denomination of Christians, demeaning themselves peaceably 
and as good subjects of the commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of 
the law, and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever 
be established by law.' This wonderful gain in the Bill of Rights did not dis-estab- 
lish the Church in Massachusetts, which was still protected under the several excep- 
tions of the article, but it broke its tyrannical power, and in a little more than half 
a century it wrought the entire separation of Church and State in Massachusetts. 
It met with the most violent resistance in the Convention, and a leader of the oppo- 
sition said : ' We believe in our consciences that the best way to serve God is to 
have religion protected and ministers of the Gospel supported by law, and we hope 
that no gentleman here will wish to wound our tender consciences.' ' The plain 
English of which,' says Leland, ' is, our consciences dictate that all the common- 
wealth of Massachusetts must submit to our judgments, and if they do not the} 7 will 
wound our tender consciences.' I3 Alden was nobly sustained in this Convention by 
Dr. Asaph Fletcher, who was also a member, and a strong advocate of this measure. 
Under its provisions many ungracious acts were perpetrated, and all sorts of quib- 
bles, pretexts and pleas that ingenious but wounded pride could invent were invoked 
to annoy the Baptists, but this Bill struck a death-blow at persecution proper in 
Massachusetts. 

The new Constitution was soon put to the test, for several persons were taxed 
at Attleboro, in 1780, to support the parish Church, although they attended else- 
where. Elijah Balkom was seized, and having sued the assessors for damages, judg- 
ment was had against him ; but, on an appeal to the County Court at Taunton, he 
obtained damages and costs. In 1783 a similar case, in many respects, occurred in 
Cambridge, where Baptists were sued to support the Standing Order, and their 
money extorted, but they sued for its return and it was paid back. These annoy- 
ances continued and sometimes were grievous enough. In a letter from Dr. Backus 
to William Richards, dated May 28th, 1796, he says : ' Though the teachers and rulers 
in the uppermost party in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Ver- 
mont are as earnest as ever Pharaoh was to hold the Church of Christ under the 
taxing power of the world, yet that power is daily consuming by the spirit of God's 
mouth.' To meet and thwart these attempts the Warren Association kept a vigilant 
committee in existence. In 1797 it consisted of Drs. Stillman, Smith and Backus, 
with Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Grafton, to whom the oppressed- Churches appealed for 
counsel and help, and they did good service indeed. John Leland said, 1801 : ' In 
the year 1800 about six hundred dollars were taken from the Baptists, in Partridge- 
field, for the building of a meeting-house in said town for another denomination. 
The case is now in law, hung up, and what the event will be we know not.' 14 Great 
hopes were entertained that the Convention held November 3d, 1820, to amend the 
Constitution, would entirely dissolve the last bond of union between Church and 



430 FULL RELLGLOUS LLBERTT DEMANDED. 

State in Massachusetts ; but this was defeated, chiefly by the determined opposition 
of John Adams, who was a member of that body. 

Isaac Backus died in 1806, after a life of astonishing activity in the cause of 
religious freedom. But his survivors adopted the motto of Caesar, 'that nothing is 
done while anything remains undone,' and they pressed their case with new zeal, 
encouraged by their gains in securing a modification of the Bill of Bights. The 
dissatisfaction with the partial measure, however, was very great. Leland gave 
it voice in many addresses and in numerous articles from the press. He said : 

'The late Convention, called to revise the Constitution, still retains the same 
principle. Strange, indeed, that Massachusetts, all alone, in opposition to all the 
other States, should still view religion a principle of State policy, the Church a 
creature of State, and ministers in the light of State pensioners ! That the Legis- 
lature should have the power to clothe the majority of each town or parish with 
authority to compel the people, by a legal tax, to support the religious teachers 
among them. What a pity ! When will men realize that a constitution of civil 
government is a charter of powers bestowed and of rights retained, and that private 
judgment and religious opinions are inalienable in their nature, like sight and hear- 
ing, and cannot be surrendered to society. Consequently, it must be impious usur- 
pation for ecclesiastics or civilians to legislate about religion.' 15 

In 1811 Judge Parsons gave a decision to the effect, that no congregation or 
society not incorporated by law could claim all the privileges which the dissenters 
claimed under the Bill of Rights, and alarm awakened them throughout the State. 
Petitions were circulated everywhere and sent to the Legislature, praying for a 
revision of the religious laws, and the people of Cheshire elected Elder Leland to 
that body for the purpose of pleading their cause. There he delivered that remark- 
able speech, in which reasoning, satire, eloquent declamation and sound statesman- 
ship hold such equal and changeful parts. The following characteristic extracts are 
not familiar to the present generation of Baptists and may be reproduced : 

' Mr. Speaker, according to a late decision of the bench, in the County of Cum- 
berland, which, it is presumed, is to be a precedent for future decisions, these non- 
incorporated societies are nobody, can do nothing, and are never to be known except 
in shearing time, when their money is wanted to support teachers that they never 
hear. And all this must be done for the good of the State. One hundred and 
seventeen years ago wearing long hair was considered the crying sin of the land. 
A convention was called March 18 1694, in Boston, to prevent it ; after a long ex- 
postulation the Convention close thus : " If any man will now presume to wear 
long hair, let him know that God and man witnesses against him." Our pious ances- 
tors were for bobbing the hair for the good of the Colony ; but now, sir, not the 
hair but the purses must be bobbed for the good of the State. The petitioners pray 
for the right of going to heaven in that way which they believe is the most direct, 
and shall this be denied them ? Must they be obliged to pay legal toll for walking 
the King's highway, which has been made free for all ? . . Since the Revolution, all 
the old States, except two or three in New England, have established religious liberty 
upon its true bottom, and yet they are not sunk with earthquakes or destroyed with 
fire and brimstone. Should this commonwealth, Mr. Speaker, proceed so far as to 
distribute all settlements and meeting-houses, which were procured by public taxes 



LELAND' S GREAT SPEECH. 431 

among all the inhabitants, without regard to denomination, it is probable that the 
outcry of sacrilege, profanity and infidelity would be echoed around ; and yet, sir, 
all this has been done in a State which has given birth and education to a Henry, a 
Washington, a Jefferson and a Madison, each of whom contributed their aid to effect 
the grand event. . . . These petitioners, sir, pay the civil list, and arm to defend 
their country as readily as others, and only ask for the liberty of forming their 
societies and paying their preachers in the only way that the Christians did 
for the first three centuries after Christ. Any gentleman upon this floor is invited 
to produce an instance that Christian societies were ever formed, Christian Sab- 
baths ever enjoined, Christian salaries ever levied, or Christian worship ever enforced 
by law before the reign of Constantine. Yet, Christianity did stand and flourish, 
not only without the aid of the law and the schools, but in opposition to both. "We 
hope, therefore, Mr. Speaker, that the prayers of thirty thousand, on this occasion, 
will be heard, and that they will obtain the exemption for which they pray.' 16 

But their prayers were not heard, and their most strenuous efforts at reform 
were unavailing, until the people arose in their might and so amended the Bill of 
Rights in 1833 that the Church and State were forever separated, since which time 
what Leland called ' the felonious principle ' has been banished from the statute 
books of all the States, and, as Leland did not die until 1811, he breathed free air 
for the last seven years of his life, to his great health and delectation. He lived to 
be eighty-seven years of age, and deserved ten years of f resh air after he had labored 
sixty-seven years to vindicate the civil and religious rights of all men. Rest, royal 
old warrior, rest on the Cheshire hills, which thou didst so much to make free ! 

In Vermont the contest was neither so long nor so severe. The lands which 
now form Vermont were claimed in part by New Hampshire and in part by New 
York, and were originally known as the ; New Hampshire grants.' Their inhabit- 
ants applied to the Continental Congress for admission into the confederacy in 1776, 
but, New York opposing, they withdrew. The next year they proclaimed them- 
selves independent and formed a Constitution, and were admitted into the Union 
in 1791. Dr. Asaph Fletcher had removed from Massachusetts to Cavendish, 
Vermont, in 1787, and was a member of the Convention which applied for the ad- 
mission of the State into the Union. He was also a member of the Convention of 
1793 to revise the State Constitution, when he contended for the separation of 
Church and State, but the contrary idea prevailed. Such a vital subject could not 
long rest, however, especially with Dr. Fletcher in active service as a member of the 
Legislature, a Judge of the County Court, a member of the Council, and a State 
Presidential elector. In 1789, two years after Fletcher's settlement in Vermont, 
he was followed by Rev. Aaron Leland, from Bell-ingham, Mass. His liberal 
political sentiments soon commended him to his fellow-citizens, and he was elected 
to the General Assembly. There he served as Speaker of the House for three 
years, and for four years he was one of the Governor's Council. For five years, 
also, he was Lieutenant-Governor of the State, and for eighteen he was an Assistant 
Justice in the County Court. He had large influence amongst the Baptists of the 
State, as well as with its citizens generally, and in 1828 he declined a nomination for 



432 DR. RICHARD FURMAN. 

Governor, fearing that the office would interfere too much with his pastoral duties. 
He was a Fellow of Middlebury College, possessed great mental power, and was a 
very forcible debater. While he was Speaker of the House a proposition came be- 
fore it for a dissolution of Church and State, and in the discussion some one was 
weak enough to say that Christianity would go down if the State withdrew its sup- 
port. This stirred all the fervor of his spirit. He left the chair and took part in 
the debate, delivering one of the strongest speeches ever heard in Vermont in favor 
of religious liberty, the main strength of his position being that God had founded 
his Church upon a rock, and that the gates of hell should not prevail against her. 

A third Vermont Baptist champion of religious freedom is found in Ezra 
Butler, who, in 1785, removed from Claremont, N. H., to Waterbury, Vt., where, 
about 1800, he became a Baptist and formed a Church, which he served as pastor 
for more than thirty years. His talents and high character induced his fellow-citi- 
zens to intrust him with civil office, first as town clerk, justice of the peace, and 
then as member of the Legislature, also as Chief Justice for Washington County. 
In 1813-15 he served his State in Congress, and from 1826 to 1828 lie was 
Governor of Vermont, with Aaron Leland as Lieutenant-Governor, both being 
Baptist ministers at the time. Under these great leaders and their compeers the 
public sentiment finally threw aside the union of Church and State in Vermont, 
distancing Massachusetts by a number of years in that race. 

South Carolina Baptists stood firmly for religious liberty. The State formed 
its Constitution in 1776, and amended it in 1778 and 1790 ; but the Baptists were 
early awake to the need of securing their rights, and as early as 1779 the Charleston 
Association made it the duty of a standing committee to labor for the perfect 
equality of all religious people before the law, and for this purpose they were ' to 
treat with the government in behalf of the Churches.' No one contributed more 
to the result of civil and religious liberty in Georgia than did the noted Richard 
Furman, D.D., of whom a brief sketch may here be given. He. was born at 
^Esopus, N". Y., in 1755, but, while an infant, his parents removed to South Caro- 
lina and settled on the High Hills of Santee. Here, after a good early education, 
he became a Christian, and at the age of eighteen began to preach, with a remark- 
able degree of clearness, devotion and force, for a youth. The district where he 
labored lay to the east and north of the rivers Wateree and Santee, where wick- 
edness abounded. He formed many Churches, which united with the Charleston 
Association. He was extremely modest, but his unassuming ardor, with his ripe- 
ness of judgment in interpreting Scripture, and his uncommon pungency of appeal 
awakened universal surprise and admiration. He was scarcely twenty-two when 
the Revolution commenced, and he avowed himself at once a firm Whig and threw 
all his powers into the American cause. When the British invaded South Carolina 
he was obliged to retire into North Carolina and Virginia, and afterwards Cornwallis 
put a price on his head. In Virginia he became intimate with Patrick Henry, who 



TRIBUTE BY DR. WILLIAMS. 433 

presented him with certain books, which are cherished in the Furman family to this 
day. In 1787 he accepted the pastoral charge of the Baptist Church in Charleston, 
where he remained for eight and thirty years, and became intimate with those 
patriot families, the Pinckneys, Rutledges and Snmters, together with whom he 
labored earnestly for the Revolutionary cause. When independence was achieved, 
and the leading men of the State were selected to meet in convention and form a 
new Constitution, their suffrages made him a member of that body, in which he 
contended earnestly against the exclusion of Christian ministers from certain civil 
offices, and did much to secure soul-liberty in the State. So nobly had he blended 
his patriotism with the refinement and urbanity of a holy character, that on the 
death of Washington and Hamilton he was appointed by the Cincinnati and the 
Revolution Society to deliver orations in tribute to their memory: 

Taken altogether, he was a most eminent servant of God and of his country. 
The late Dr. W. R. Williams said : 

' Of this eminent servant of the Lord it is difficult to express what is just and 
proper without the appearance of excessive partiality. To represent him in the 
ordinary terms of eulogy, or to depict his virtues by any of the common standards 
of description, would be the direct way to fall short of the truth. The Providence 
of God gives few such men to the world as Dr. Furman. . . Where others were 
great he was transcendent, and where others were fair and consistent in character, 
he stood forth lovely and luminous in all the best attributes of man. . . In general 
learning he had made such progress as would have ranked him among men of the first 
intelligence in any country. . . His studies were chiefly confined to mathematics, 
metaphysics, belles-lettres, logic, history and theology. He cultivated also an acquaint- 
ance with the ancient classics, particularly Homer, Longinus and Quintillian, with 
whose beauties and precepts he was familiar. He read with sedulous attention all 
the writers of the Augustan age of English literature, and whatever the language 
possessed valuable in criticism and immortal in poetry. There are few men, it is 
believed, who have had their minds more richly stored with the fine passages of 
Milton, Young, Pope, Addison, Butler and other great authors than Dr. Furman. 
From them he could quote properly, and appositely for almost every occasion, what 
was most beautiful and eloquent. He possessed uncommon talent in discerning the 
utility of those studies connected with the mind, and in condensing them into such 
abstracts as to make them clearly intelligible to every capacity. In this way he 
could analyze and expound the principles of moral philosophy and logic, with a 
facility which could only have resulted from a ready mastery over the subjects. 
But that which imparted a charm to his whole life was the godly savor which per- 
vaded and sweetened all his superior endowments and qualifications. All the vigor 
of his noble intellect was consecrated to God. All the matured fruit of his long 
experience was an oblation to the Father of Mercies. All the variety of his ac- 
quirements, and all the vastness of his well-furnished mind, were merged in one pre- 
vailing determination to know nothing save Christ crucified.' 



CHAPTER XI. 

FOREIGN MISSIONS.— ASIA AND EUROPE. 

SCARCELY had the Baptists adjusted themselves to their new circumstances 
in the American republic, when a fresh element was thrown into their life 
by enlarging their conceptions of duty to Christ, both in sending the Gospel to for- 
eign lands and in doubling their efforts to evangelize their own country. American 
Baptists were called to foreign mission work in 1814 on this wise. In 1812 Rev. 
Adoniram Judson and his wife, Ann Hasseltine Judson, with Rev. Luther Rice, 
were appointed by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to 
establish missions in Asia. Messrs. Judson and Rice sailed in different vessels to 
India, and on their voyage, without consultation with each other, they re-examined 
the New Testament teaching on baptism. The result was that they both adopted 
the views of the Baptists, and, in loyalty to God's word, when they reached Cal- 
cutta, they were immersed on a personal profession of their faith in Christ. At 
once they made this change known to the world, and were cut off from their former 
denominational support. Mr. Rice returned to the United States to awaken in the 
Baptist Churches a zeal for the establishment of missions in India. He was heartily 
welcomed, and measures were adopted for the temporary support of Mr. and Mrs. 
Judson. Mr. Rice traveled from Boston through the Middle and Southern States, 
and his addresses kindled a wide-spread enthusiasm, which resulted in the gathering 
of a convention, composed of thirty-six delegates from eleven States and the District 
of Columbia, who met in Philadelphia, May 18th, 1814, when a society was formed, 
called The Baptist General Convention for Foreign Missions. Dr. Furman, of 
South Carolina, was President of this body, Dr. Baldwin, of Massachusetts, Secretary, 
and Mr. and Mrs. Judson were adopted as its first missionaries. 

Rev. Dr. Baldwin, of Boston, was also elected President of a Board which was 
to conduct the operations of the Convention, which office he filled till his death in 
1825, and Drs. Holcomb and Rogers were elected Vice-Presidents. Mr. John 
Cauldwell was chosen as Treasurer, and Rev. Dr. Staughton as Corresponding Sec- 
retary. Mr. Rice was chosen 

' To continue his itinerant services in these United States for a reasonable time, 
with a view to excite the public mind more generally to engage in missionary exer- 
tions and to assist in organizing societies an.d institutions for carrying the missionary 
design into execution.' 

The Convention itself came to be known as the ' Triennial Convention,' from 
the fact that it met once in three years, and the Board of the Convention was 



DR. JUDSON AND TEE EMPEROR. 435 

located in Boston. Mr. Rice collected a considerable amount of money, and in 1815 
Mr. Hough, of New Hampshire, and Miss White, of Philadelphia, were appointed 
missionaries. The first triennial session of the Convention was held in Philadel- 
phia, May, 1817, when Dr. Furman was re-elected President, and Dr. Sharp, of 
Boston, Secretary. At this meeting the Convention enlarged its work by appro- 
priating a portion of its funds to domestic missionary purposes, and also by deter- 
mining ' to institute a classical and theological seminary ' to train young men for the 
ministry, which measures, as we shall see, diverted the Convention considerably, 
from the primary intention of its founders. 

Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Judson were driven by the intolerance of the 
government from Bengal and proceeded to Rangoon, to commence missionary work 
in Burma, where they arrived July 13th, 1813. Rangoon was the chief sea-port of 
Burma, and the most important center of Buddhism. A feeble attempt to establish 
a mission here had been made by a son of Dr. Carey, but it had been abandoned; 
and Mr. and Mrs. Judson found themselves in this heathen city, without an En- 
glish-speaking helper, a grammar, a dictionary or a printed book. They began the 
study of the language, in which, twenty-one years later, Mr. Judson was able to lay 
the whole Bible, faithfully translated, before the Burman people. Mr. and Mrs. 
Judson celebrated the Lord's Supper alone in Rangoon, September 19th, 1813 ; but 
Mr. and Mrs. Hough joined them in October, 1816, and Messrs. Wheelock and 
Coleman in 1819. A zayat, or shed, for the preaching of the Gospel, was opened 
on the way-side in April, 1819. Though they had labored much privately, this was 
their first attempt at public worship. Their first congregation numbered fifteen, 
but was both inattentive and disorderly. Besides the Sabbath service, the mission- 
aries used the zayat from morning till night every day in the week, to teach the way 
of salvation to all who came. The first convert, Moung Nau, was baptized 
June 27th, 1819 ; two others were immersed in November of that year. As the 
laws of Burma made it a capital crime for a native to change his religion, Messrs. 
Judson and Coleman thought it prudent to visit the Emperor at the capital, that 
they might, if possible, secure toleration for the converts who had become Chris- 
tians. They went up on this errand to Amarapura in December, carrying to the 
Emperor an elegant Bible in six volumes, enveloped, according to Burman taste, in 
a beautiful wrapper. A tract, also, was prepared and presented, containing a brief 
summary of Christianity. The Emperor read but two sentences of the tract and 
threw it from him in displeasure ; he also declined to accept the Bible. The mis- 
sionaries returned to Rangoon to report their failure to the converts, dreading its 
possible effect upon their minds ; but, to their surprise, these remained steadfast to 
their profession, and begged their teachers to abide with them until there should be 
eight or ten converts, at least. If then they should depart, one of the converts 
would be appointed to teach the rest, and so the new religion might spread itself. 

Mr. Coleman went to Chittagong, a part of India which had been ceded to the 



436 TEE KAREN MISSION. 

English Crown, to provide a refuge for the converts in case they should he driven 
by persecution to seek the protection of the British government, and he died while 
on this mission of love. Mrs. Judson visited England, Scotland, and the United 
States and awakened a deep interest in the work. Mr. and Mrs. Wade joined the 
mission ; but, just as prosperity began to dawn on the missionaries' labors, the first 
Burmese war broke out, suspending their operations for nearly three years, and sub- 
jecting them to the gravest apprehensions for their own lives. The Burmans did 
not understand the difference between Englishmen and Americans, and arrested 
indiscriminately every person wearing a hat. An executioner was placed over 
Messrs. Hough and Wade, who, with bent heads and bared necks, awaited the fatal 
blow, the order having been given that the Burman executioner should strike off 
their heads the moment that a British shot should he fired upon Rangoon. The 
shot was fired, but the executioner fled in terror, and the two men of God escaped. 
After this, Judson was confined at Ava and Oungpenla for nineteen months, the 
victim of agonizing sufferings. Meanwhile, his precious manuscript of the New 
Testament was for a season buried in the earth under a floor, and afterwards sewed 
up in an old pillow, which was tossed about from hand to hand till the close of the 
war, too hard to tempt the head of the poorest by the thought that it was worth 
destruction. . 

During the war a native preacher remained in Rangoon ; yet the converts were 
scattered, and the pastor suffered scourging, the stocks and imprisonment, for the 
name of Christ. In a short time after the war, however, the Church numbered 
twenty members, nearly all baptized by him. The terms of peace annexed a large 
portion of Burman territory to British India, and from that time the mission fell 
under British protection. Not far from this period the Kakens first received the 
Gospel. They had long been oppressed by their Burman neighbors, and lived 
hidden in the hills and forests. It was, therefore, a thrilling scene when thirty-four 
of that people were baptized by Mr. Mason, in the presence of Mr. Boardman, their 
apostle. Up to that time there had been but twenty-two converts in fifteen years, 
including the capital of Burma, Amherst and ^Tavoy. At the close of this bap- 
tismal scene, the first-fruits of Mr. Boardman's labor amongst the Karens, his joyful 
spirit ascended to its rest. This people seemed ripe for the Gospel from the begin- 
ning, while the prouder Burman race have received the Gospel slowly, only about 
1,200 having become members of our churches down to this date ; about 30,000 
Karens have become Christians, and are now gathered into Gospel churches. For 
the general convenience of our Burman missions, the printing department, the 
Karen College, and the Theological Seminary are located in Rangoon. Mr. 
Bennett first established the press and had charge of it for more than half a cent- 
ury, accomplishing incalculable good thereby to all Burma. The Karen College 
was opened in 1872, with seventeen students, under the Presidency of Rev. Dr. 
Binney, in buildings endowed by the late Professor Ruggles, of Washington. The 



THE MAULMAIN MISSION. 



437 



Theological Seminary was established by Dr. Binney, in 1859, though instruction 
had been previously given, at different times and places, by Dr. Wade and others, to 
candidates for the ministry. Rev. D. A. W. Smith, D.D., has presided over the 
seminary since the death of Dr. Binney, aided by four native Karen teachers, edu- 
cated men, prepared for their office. It numbers about sixty students, and yearly 
graduates about one fourth of that number to preach to their own people. Dr. 
Smith has nearly finished a complete commentary of the Bible in Karen, and pre- 
pared and issued for the use of Karen students an elementary treatise on logic and 
"Wayland's ' Elements of Moral Science,' and for several years he has put into Karen 
the 'International Sunday-School Lessons' for Karen Sabbath-schools. Besides 
superintending the Burman work in and around Rangoon, Dr. Stevens has instructed 
several Burman assistants. The first female convert in Burmah, Mali Menla, was 
baptized by torch-light, on the night of July 18th, 1820. Such has been the growth 
of the Burman missions that amongst the 
various peoples of the empire there are 
98 missionaries, male and female, 118 
ordained native preachers, and 25,371 
members. The war of 1826 was followed 
by the death of the heroic Mrs. Judson, 
in Amherst, where she now sleeps in 
Jesus. After her death, her husband trans- 
ferred most of his personal property to 
the missionary treasury. ■ 

Maulmain, the chief station of the 
British power in Bnrmn, was thencefor- 
ward made the head-quarters of the mis- 
sion. Work was begun there in 1827, 
between which time and September, 
1828, twenty-one converts were baptized 
and a native Church was formed, number- 
ing thirty members. In 1834 Dr. Judson 
completed the revision of the ~New Testament and finished the translation of the 
Old. A mission press was set up in Maulmain by Mr. Bennett in 1830, which was 
followed within a brief interval by three others. The printing of the Bible in four 
or five languages and dialects, besides tracts, school-books and other works, has 
kept the press — which in 1862 was transferred to Rangoon — constantly busy. 
Maulmain was the first seat of the Karen Theological Seminary and of Miss Has- 
well's school for native girls, established in 1867, which in five years numbered 103 
pupils. Here also Dr. Haswell translated the New Testament into Peguan, and here 
he rests in hope of a blessed resurrection. A Baptist Church was formed here, in 
connection with the British army, and many English soldiers became the disciples of 




ANN HASSELTIXE JUDSON. 



438 



DR. JUDSON'S TRANSLATION. 



Christ. The native Christians are well trained in the art of giving for religious 
purposes. In seven years they gave over $5,000 in gold for the support of the 
Gospel and mission schools. In connection with the station at Maulmain there 
were reported in 1886 about twenty Churches and more than 1,100 members. 

Dr. Judson did his last work at Maulmain. He had spent ten years at Kan- 
goon, two at Ava, and a brief time at Amherst, after which he removed to Maul- 
main and continued there to the close of life, chiefly pursuing the work of transla- 
tion ; though he kept the oversight of the Burmese Church there. The last leaf of 
his translation of the Scriptures was finished on January 31st, 1834, and he put his 

revised translation to press 
in 1810. When his health 
became thoroughly broken, 
he left this place under 
the advice of his physician, 
on board the French bark 
Aristide Marie, bound for 
the Island of Bourbon, in 
the hope that the voyage 
might prolong his life. But 
nine days after his embark* 
ment, when scarcely three 
days out of sight of the 
Burmese mountains, he be- 
gan to sink rapidly. All 
that love and skill could do 
for him were done, but at 
fifteen minutes past four 
o'clock P. M., on the 12th 
of April, 1850, he passed 
to the bosom of Jesus, as 
peacefully as a child would drop asleep in its mother's arms. At eight o'clock the 
same evening, the crew, his two broken-hearted Burman assistants and Mr. Kanney 
assembled on the larboard part of the ship, and in reverent silence committed his 
body to the keeping of. the Indian Ocean. No eye now rests upon the spot that 
closed over him but that of the true God. In latitude 13 degrees north, longi- 
tude 93 degrees east, God found a grave for one of his noblest sons on this globe. 
None can drop a tear or raise a shaft there, but his eternal monument lives in 
redeemed Burma. She glorifies God in him who to her was made the savor of life 
unto life. 

Tavoy was the third of the Burman missions ; its establishment being due to a 
suggestion of the first native Burman preacher, who proposed to make a missionary 




DR. JUDSON'S TRANSLATION FINISHED. 



TEE TAVOT MISSION. 439 

journey there in 1827. Here that great work amongst the Karens commenced ; here 
the first Karen preacher was baptized, and near Tavoy Mr. Mason performed his 
first official act as a missionary in baptizing thirty-four Karens. It is nearly two 
hundred miles distant from Maulmain and thirty-five miles from the sea, on Tavoy 
River. Its population at the opening of the mission, April 18th, 1828, was about 
6,000 ; it is in British Burma and a stronghold of idolatry. Two converts soon 
formed the nucleus of the Church, and a missionary spirit possessed the con- 
verts, who visited many villages far and near with the word of life. The 
Karens of the vicinity held a tradition that at some time messengers from the 
West would bring to them a revelation from God. Hence, they were prepared 
to receive our missionaries with open arms and to accept their message. The 
printing-press was located at Tavoy for some time, and a chapel was built 
in the town, not far from the grave of Boardinan. The Karen Church in the 
town is weak, but many Churches exist in the forest and jungle, some miles away. 
Mr. Morrow is the faithful missionary to the Karens there, and his wife, an edu- 
cated physician, is his efficient helper. The Tavoy Association numbers 23 Churches, 
950 members, 11 ordained and 10 unordained preachers, and 13 schools. 

The second war between Burma and Great Britain, 1852, was brief, but had 
an important influence on the missionary work. It resulted in the annexation of a 
large portion of Southern Burma to the British realm in India, which opened a 
wider field for preaching and relieved the converts from the fear of persecution by 
a heathen government ; our mission in Burma, therefore, took a sudden expansion. 
New stations were commenced in Toungoo, on the Sitang River, Henthada, and 
other places, and many triumphs crowned the labors of our brethren. Toungoo, 
one of the new stations, opened by Dr. Mason in 1853, was one of the most 
fruitful in converts. The zeal of Sau Quala, a native preacher, was awakened 
through a man from Toungoo, who had been converted three years previously. The 
second day after the beginning of the mission, a hundred Burmans called on Dr. 
Mason to inquire about the new religion, and in a few weeks he found several dis- 
ciples. Ill health compelled Dr. Mason to leave for the United States for a time ; 
but the mission, left in charge of Sau Quala, seemed to be blessed with a new Pen- 
tecost. Active, faithful, wise and energetic, this native preacher took a broad field, 
planned prudently, superintended efficiently, and commended himself to all by his 
self-denying labors. In the first year of the mission 741 were baptized. "Within a 
year and nine months he had administered the ordinance to 1,860 converts and formed 
28 churches, while hundreds of converts were still waiting to be baptized. In 
1856 zayats were erected in forty villages, where the people had renounced idola- 
try, and ten native preachers in the district wei-e supported by the Maulmain Mis- 
sionary Society. In a single month of 1857 .Mr. Whitaker baptized 233 converts ; 
two Associations were organized, and various Karen tribes were brought under 
Christian influences. 



440 HENTHADA AND ARRACAN. 

Dr. Mason died in 1874. Mr. Bunker, Mr. Eveleth, Dr. Cross and others, had 
in the meantime, joined the station. Dr. Mason had translated the whole Bible 
into Sgau Karen, and later, Mr. Brayton translated it into Pwo Karen. Dr. Mason, 
being a man of scientific tendencies, contributed largely to the knowledge of natural 
history in the Burman empire. The mission in and about Toungoo numbers 102 
native preachers, 110 Churches, and 3,869 members. From this point the mission 
to the Shans began, and the Bible has been translated into Shan by Dr. Cushing. 
The statistics of 1886 give 144 churches, 4,788 members, and 84 native preachers. 

Henthada was opened as a mission station after the war of 1852. Mr. Thomas 
was the first missionary to the Karens of this mission, and Mr. Crawley to the Bur- 
mans. At first many of the natives, attracted by curiosity, thronged as visitors to 
the missionaries, who, after the Gospel was introduced, became zealous converts ; 
for at the end of the first year the Karen department reported 8 churches and 150 
members. At the end of ten years, the mission reported 751 Burman converts and 
five preachers. Mr. Thomas instructed a class of twenty or more native helpers 
every year, during the rains, and kept the charge of his field twelve or thirteen 
years, traveling in every part of his district, preaching and baptizing constantly, 
enjoying almost a perpetual revival. At length, broken in health, for a time 
he changed his field for that of Bassein, and Mr. Smith took the post at Henthada. 
In a short time Mr. Thomas was compelled to return to the United States, where 
he died on the day after his arrival. His widow returned to Henthada, where 
she efficiently continued the work which her husband had begun ; their son, 
Willis F., joined his mother in 1880, and is still toiling in a spirit worthy of his 
parents. 

Abeacan, on the western coast of Burma, became a mission station in 1835, 
and, at different times, thirteen missionaries and their wives labored there with much 
success. A chain of mountains, parallel with the coast, divided Burma Proper 
from the territory which had been ceded to Great Britain. In many instances, the- 
converts on the Burman frontier, having embraced Christianity, crossed the mount- 
ains into English territory, and being baptized, returned, to live a Christian life 
amongst their fellow-countrymen. The work prospered and multitudes believed. 
The names of Abbott, Comstock, Stilson, Ingalls and others, are a memorial in this 
mission. All of them passed away early, and the Arracan Mission disappeared ; but 
out of it grew the mission in Bassein, one of the fairest portions of the Christian 
heritage in Burma. It has become one of the great centers of evangelical labor 
amongst the Karens. In 1872, a Burman preacher, supported almost wholly by 
native contributions, visited 540 houses, conversed on religious themes with 1,397 
persons, and distributed 600 or 700 tracts. As early as 1848, there were 36 
teachers and more than 400 pupils in the schools of the Karen department. Day- 
schools existed in nearly every village, and the native Christians sustained the 
preaching of the Gospel in their own neighborhoods. The plan of self-support has 



PRO ME AND ASSAM. 441 

been effectively developed, and native Christians have contributed much to send 
the Gospel to others. A memorial hall, serving the double purpose of a place of 
worship and for higher education, spacious and provided with every facility, was 
dedicated at Bassein in 1878, on the fiftieth anniversary of the baptism of the first 
Karen convert. This building was paid for mainly by the liberality of the native 
Christians. In 1886 there were 99 churches, 8,490 members, and 97 native 
preachers. 

Prome has ever been a scene of missionary interest, on account of the visit 
paid to that city by Dr. Judson in 1830, although for twenty-four years after that 
visit no missionary returned there. But the work was again taken up by Messrs. 
Kincaid and Simons, and still later by Mr. E. O. Stevens, son of the veteran mission- 
ary in Rangoon, and it has yielded good fruit. Four Churches connected with the 
mission are self-supporting, and there are now 11 native preachers, 4 churches, and 
241 members. Many other stations in Burma have missionaries and native preachers, 
churches and schools, and are fully organized for Christian work. Thongzai, an 
exclusively Burman station, is remarkable for the labor of Mrs. Ingalls and a female 
associate, who have stood firmly at their post for many years. She has won the 
confidence and affections of the converts and of the heathen, and is held in high es- 
teem by travelers of all ranks ; for the railroad, extending between Rangoon and 
Prome, passes directly through Thongzai. In 1877 Bhamo became a station of the 
Missionary Union, and since the absorption of Burma proper into British India, 
Mandalay/ the capital, is also occupied by that body. All upper Burma is now 
included in the territory cultivated by the American Baptists. A recent enterprise 
has been entered upon in a station amongst the Karens at Chiengmai, in northern 
Siam. 

Assam was opened as a mission in 1836 by Messrs. Nathan Brown and O. T. 
Cutter, who had been previously stationed in Burma. The first station of the mis- 
sion was Sadiya, 400 miles north of Ava, and about 200 from Yunnan, on the borders 
of China. But about a dozen stations are now occupied, mostly on the south side of 
the Brahmaputra, and are accessible by British steamers. A printing-press was estab- 
lished by Mr. Cutter, and the translation of the New Testament into Assamese was 
begun by Dr. Brown, Jan. 1, 1838. Mr. Bronson undertook to open a mission 
amongst the Nagas, in their hills, but on account of the insalubrity of the climate 
he changed his residence to Nowgong, where he baptized the first Assamese convert, 
June 13, 1841. The Nowgong Orphan Institution was for several years a fruitful 
part of the mission work, for in it many were converted and trained for usefulness. 
The school was dispersed after twelve years, but more native helpers were brought 
out of this school than from any other source. Other stations were occupied in suc- 
cession by new missionaries, Messrs. Ward, Whiting, Danforth and others, whose 
labors were crowned by abundant blessings. In 1851 the second edition of the 
New Testament was issued, and revivals of religion, with large additions to the 



442 THE SIAM MISSION. 

Churches, followed. In 1857, at the time of the Indian mutiny, much apprehension 
was felt ; but the storm passed, and not a hair of the head of any missionary was 
touched. 

The Garos were first visited in 1857, and that movement opened one of the 
brightest chapters in the history of the mission to Assam. A torn tract, swept out 
of a building which had been cleaned and prepared for a new tenant, was picked 
up by a Sepoy guard and read. It led to his conversion ; he became an efficient 
preacher to his tribe, and in 1867, a Church was formed amongst them, numbering 
40 members. The next year the number increased to 81, and in 1869 to 110 ; from 
these sprang 5 native churches, 8 native preachers, and a Normal School. The mission 
has conveyed the Gospel to tribe after tribe in the hills and on the plains adjoining 
the Brahmaputra. Two Assamese native preachers and one Garo have visited the 
United States, and the latter, who had learned English, spent a year in the Newton 
Theological Institution. The statistics of 1886 show, 30 churches, 1,889 members, 
and 27 native preachers, with 7 stations and 21 missionaries, male and female. 
The stations of the Assam Mission are divided into three Assam, three Naga, and 
one Garo, amongst which there are 72 schools and 1,229 pupils. 

Siam was the second mission undertaken by American Baptists amongst the 
heathen inhabitants of Asia. Rev. John Taylor Jones was the first missionary. He 
had labored about two years in Burma, and had become so proficient in that lan- 
guage as to preach to the natives in their own tongue. He reached Bangkok in 
March, 1833, and the first converts were baptized in December of that year. They 
were all Chinese, which race form the majority of the people of that a\tj. Dr. Jones 
translated the New Testament into Siamese and made much progress in preparing a 
Dictionary of the language, a grammar and other works. Mrs. Jones prepared a 
Catechism of the Christian religion. From the mission-press in Bangkok, much 
Christian literature was scattered abroad. Dr. Dean joined the mission in 1831, and 
devoted himself to the Chinese department ; left Siam in 1812, and returned to 
Bangkok in 1864. In August, 1835, he preached his first sermon to 34 natives, and 
in 1841, formed a class of Chinese preachers, which he continued till he left for Hong 
Kong. Mr. J. H. Chandler joined the mission in 1843. He was not a preacher, but 
possessed remarkable mechanical skill, and largely through his influence the king 
became one of the most progressive native rulers of Asia. In the palace is a working 
printing-press, and one or more steamboats belonging to the government ply in the 
river before Bangkok. 

During the next ten years Messrs. Davenport, Goddard, Jencks and Ashmore, 
with their wives, joined the mission, and Miss Harriet H. Morse, the latter to labor 
in the Siamese department, the others in the Chinese. Dr. Jones died in 1851. A 
decree was issued tolerating Christian worship, and by authority of the king the 
ladies of the mission were invited to the palace daily to teach the court ladies En- 
glish. After the death of Dr. Jones, the Siamese work was continued by Mr. S. J. 



THE TELUGUS. 443 

Smith, who, with his wife, has remained until this date, to superintend a school, to 
prepare and distribute tracts and to teach the people the knowledge of the true God. 
Mr. Smith supports himself and his work by secular employment. Messrs. Lisle, 
Partridge and Chilcott and Miss Fielde have labored in the Chinese department. 
In the year 1874 there were large additions to the number of converts, two new 
Churches were formed and two native pastors ordained. Eleven were baptized at 
one station, seventeen at another, twenty-five at a third, and eighty-four at a fourth. 
In 1877 there were six churches, 418 members, and sixty-one were baptized during 
the year. Dr. Jones labored in Bangkok eighteen years, Dr. Dean more than 
twenty-five, Messrs. Davenport and Telford, nine years each ; Dr. Ashmore and 
Miss Morse, seven years each ; Miss Fielde six years, Mr. Partridge four, and Mr. 
Chilcott one. About thirty missionaries have been connected with this mission. Its 
latest statistics report five churches and one hundred members. Many of those who 
have been baptized, being but temporary residents of Siam, have returned to China 
and been numbered with the disciples of Christ there. 

The Telugus. This Indian mission has been amongst the most successful and 
renowned in modern times. The Telugu nation numbers about 18,000,000, resid- 
ing mainly in India, west of the Bay of Bengal, and between Calcutta on the north 
and Madras on the south. The mission was commenced in 1836, by Messrs. Day 
and Yan Husen. Its jubilee was celebrated with great joy at Nellore, in February, 
1886. The ' Lone Star,' as it has been often called, has expanded into a constellation. 
For the first twenty years the work was discouraging and many proposed to abandon 
it, but a few pleaded for its continuance and prevailed. The first permanent station 
of the mission was Nellore. Rev. Mr. Jewett joined the mission in April, 1849, 
and preached his first sermon in Telugu in December, eight months after his arrival. 
At the close of 1852 he and his wife, with two or three native Christians, visited 
Ongole, and, before leaving the place, they ascended a slope of ground overlooking this 
village, since named ' Prayer-meeting Hill,' and while kneeling together there, praj'ed 
that a missionary might be sent to Ongole. In the meantime the work of preach- 
ing, teaching and tract distribution was continued, and a few converts were gathered 
as the first-fruits of these efforts. In 1858 several were added to the Church, 
and twelve years after the prayers on Prayer-meeting Hill, Rev. J. E. Clough 
formed the mission and planted his standard at Ongole. On the 1st of June, 1867, 
eight members formed a church at Ongole. Divine influences have been wonder- 
fully shed abroad amongst this people. After the Week of Prayer, in the beginning 
of January, five days were spent in a tent-meeting devoted to reading the Script- 
ures, prayer and preaching ; at the close twenty-eight asked for baptism. In 1868 
when Mr. Timpany joined the mission, twenty-three were baptized in Nellore and 
sixty-eight in Ongole. More than eighty villages, in a circuit of forty miles around 
Ongole, had heard the word of life. Mr. McLaurin came to the help of the mis- 
sionaries in 1870, when 1,000 villages had heard the Gospel. This year a Church 



444 A REMARKABLE BAPTISMAL SCENE. 

was organized in Ramapatam, and the number of baptisms reported for the yeai 
was 915. The Theological Seminary, for native preachers, was opened'here in 1872, 
with eighteen students, a body that has increased to more than 200 members. Mr. 
Downie arrived in 1873, and Mr. Campbell in 1874. Then came a year of famine, 
a year of cholera, and still another of famine. During these years the government 
came to the help of the perishing people by employing them in digging canals 
for the development of the country. Mr. Clough took contracts for certain portions of 
this work, and paid good wages to the starving natives of his district, and while 
they labored for their bread, his native preachers laid before them the Gospel. 
Many asked for baptism, but he refused to baptize any while the famine lasted lest 
they should profess Christianity from wrong motives. When the three years of 
pestilence and famine were over, he offered baptism to all true believers. July 3d, 
1878, 2,222 were immersed upon the profession of their faith. He detailed the pro- 
cess to the writer with great care, stating that there were six administrators ; three 
of them immersing at a time, as the candidates were brought to them into the 
water, and when they became weary the three rested while the others proceeded with 
the baptisms. Everything, he said, was done with perfect deliberation, the Gospel 
formula was carefully pronounced over each candidate before his burial ; that he 
stood by and superintended the administration, but baptized none himself, and that 
only about eight hours were passed in the great baptism. From June to Septem- 
ber, 9,147 were immersed, and the numbers increased until 17,000 had been immersed 
on their profession of faith in Christ. The church register in Ongole alone contained, 
in 1881, more than 16,000 names. During the first half of the year 1881, 1,669 
were baptized, and from June, 1878, to June, 1881, the total number reached 
16,846. For years the native preachers had faithfully preached throughout the dis- 
trict, and the American missionaries were delighted to see them thus honored of 
God in their labors. The Ongole Church having become the largest in the world, 
the multitude was organized into fourteen Churches for convenience. The whole 
number of members reported in 1886 is 26,389, the church at Ongole still number- 
ing 14,890. In the mission, at the same date, there were 13 stations, 40 missiona- 
ries, male and female, 160 native preachers, 46 churches, 292 schools, and 4,270 
pupils. 

China. The Missionary Union has two missions in the empire of China, the 
Southern and the Eastern. Mr. Shuck and Mr. Roberts founded the Southern 
mission, being followed by Dr. William Dean, who reached Hong Kong in 1842. Mr. 
Lord reached Mngpoo in June, 1847, and Mr. Goddard went from Bangkok to Ning- 
poo in 1849. There was a temporary station at Macao, where the first Chinese con- 
vert of the mission was baptized. A chapel was built in Victoria and another in 
Chekchee. Thirty-three services were held every week in Chinese, and in 1844 
nineteen were baptized. In 1848 Mr. Johnson joined the mission, and in that year 
20,000 tracts were distributed ; also, Dr. Dean's ' Notes on the Gospel of Matthew 



CHINA AND JAPAN. 445 

and the Book of Genesis.' Mr. Ashmore joined the mission in 1858, and in 
1861 the seat of the mission was transferred to Swatow. The Church there num- 
bered thirty members in 1863, but suffered great persecution. A literary graduate, 
however, confessed Christ ; two Chinese preachers were ordained in 1867 and be- 
came pastors of churches. Miss Fielde and Mr. Partridge were transferred to 
Swatow ; the former prepared a synopsis of the Gospels in Chinese and a diction- 
ary of the Swatow dialect. In 1876 forty -nine were baptized, and the next year 
169, making the number of members 512. Mr. McKibben labored amongst the 
Hakkas, or highlanders, who are the most literary people in China. The statistics of 
1886 give 36 out-stations, 1,433 members, 36 native preachers, 11 missionaries, 11 
schools, and 175 pupils. 

Ningpo, or the Eastern China mission, has its principal station at Ningpo. It 
has been occupied from 1813, when Dr. Macgowan opened a hospital. In eight 
months of the next year 2,139 cases were treated. A chapel was opened in 1816, 
and a congregation of from eighty to one hundred attended, some also being bap- 
tized. In 1853, Mr. Goddard, who had joined the mission at Ningpo, completed an 
independent version of the ISIew Testament, pronounced by competent j udges the 
best Chinese version that has been made. Mr. Emowlton joined the mission in 
1855, and various outlying stations were established, so that, in 1859, nineteen were 
baptized, two of them literary men, and an unusual number of females. Two 
women became Bible-readers, and the Church at Ningpo supported its own pastor. 
Five young Chinamen became candidates for the ministry, and in December, 1872, 
the first Baptist Chinese Association was formed there, numbering six Churches, 
twenty-three delegates being present, members of Churches 219, and native preachers 
fifteen. Dr. Barchet re-established the medical work in 1877, and Mr. Jenkins issued 
a Reference Testament. Sometimes sixty cases of disease were treated in a day, and 
many of the pupils were able to recite, word for word, the whole books of Genesis 
and Matthew. At this time, 1886, the Churches of the Eastern China mission 
number seven ; members 216, native preachers thirteen, Bible-women four, schools 
six, pupils 181. 

Japan. This mission was commenced by the appointment of Dr. Nathan 
Brown, once missionary to Assam, in May, 1872. He arrived on his field in Febru- 
ary, 1873. Japan was just awakening from the slumber of centuries, and its perse- 
cuting edicts against Christianity were, about that time, abandoned by imperial 
proclamation. Mr. Arthur and wife joined the mission in October, and, while study- 
ing the language, found numbers of young men who had forsaken the gods and 
were ready to listen to the Gospel. A Church of eight members was formed at 
Yokohama in 1873. Mr. Arthur stationed himself at Tokio, the capital, and several 
Buddhist priests offered him quarters in one of their temples. A Scripture Manual 
in Japanese was prepared by Dr. Brown, for the use of schools, and put in circula- 
tion. The first baptism in Tokio was in October, 1875. At Yokohama a daily 



446 THE CONGO MISSION. 

Bible class was established and a Sabbath-school ; a native preacher labored, and by 
1876 the Church numbered twenty-two members, while at Tokio, the same year, the 
Church had thirty-six members ; Mi-. Arthur died in 1877. Within three years the 
mission printed more than 3,000,000 pages of Scriptures and tracts, and the first Gos- 
pel ever printed in Japan was printed at the Baptist mission press. In 1878 twenty- 
eight converts were added to the two Churches, and Dr. Brown's translation of the 
New Testament was issued in 1879. Dr. Brown was one of the loveliest men ever 
known to the writer, and one of the best scholars. Before his death, in 1886, he 
translated the New Testament into the language of two heathen peoples : the Assam- 
ese and the Japanese. A Catechism of forty-eight pages, by Mr. Arthur, remains 
as a precious memorial of his literary labors for the Japanese. Rev. Thomas Poate 
joined the mission in December, 1879. He was formerly a teacher in the Imperial 
College of Japan. In a journey to the north he found the Japanese remarkably 
open to Christianity, and during 1880 baptized twenty-six and organized three 
Churches in that part of the empire. In 1886 there were five stations, four Churches, 
409 members, fifteen native preachers and 215 pupils in schools. 

Afkica. The mission to the continent of Africa was commenced almost simul- 
taneously with that in Burma, and several devoted missionaries sacrificed their lives 
in that inhospitable climate. The mission, begun in Monrovia, Liberia, was continued 
with indifferent success and under many discouragements, until 1856. The labors 
of Messrs. Lott Carey (colored), Skinner and others, were amongst Africans restored 
to their own country from America, and the Bassa tribe in the vicinity. Mr. Clarke, 
one of the missionaries, prepared a dictionary of the Bassa language, and nine Bassa 
young men were converted. One native came to the United States, was baptized 
here, learned the printer's trade, and was about to return to his own people when 
he died. So many of the missionaries died after a brief period on the field that the 
mission was suspended in 1856 ; in 1868, the work was renewed, and Robert Hill 
(colored) appointed a missionary; he never reached his field. In 1869-70, 153 
were baptized, and the mission reported 218 converts ; in 1871 two Churches were 
organized and a place of worship dedicated. Two years afterwards, 19 Bassas cast 
off idolatry and embraced Christ, but aside from several heroic Bible-readers, who 
were on the field in 1880, the work is in a languishing state, in the absence of 
trained missionaries. 

The Congo Mission, in Central Africa, was first sustained by Mr. and Mrs. 
Guinness, of London, and much money was expended, largely out of their own pos- 
sessions, in buildings and the maintenance of a steam-boat to ply on the river Congo 
and its branches, with other provisions for prosecuting mission work. They pro- 
posed to turn over to the American Baptists all the mission property in the Congo 
country, including land, buildings, the steam-boat and the missionary force, on con- 
dition that the work be carried forward on the principles of the Missionary Union. 
In 1884 this proffer was accepted, and the work undertaken. On grounds of ex- 



MISSIONS IN GERMANY. 447 

pediency, some of the stations were transferred to another society laboring near 
them, and arrangements were made to bring the work into line with the general 
methods of work pursued by the Union. In 1886 five stations were reported, thir- 
teen male missionaries, of whom three are married, and two single women. One 
missionary and wife have been sent from the United States, and two colored mission- 
aries will soon be added to the force. At present, this noble enterprise is in its 
infancy, and although several converts have been baptized, the fruits of the mission 
have been largely the anticipation of prayerful hope until very recently. Intelli- 
gence is received that a powerful work of grace is in progress at Banza Manteka, 
where more than 1,000 converts have been baptized, two of the king's sons being 
amongst them. At Mukimbungu about 30 have been converted, and the work of 
God is spreading in various directions. 

European Missions. Efforts to establish missions in Europe have been put forth 
by American Baptists. In France in 1832, in Germany and adjacent countries in 
1834, in Greece 1836. in Sweden 1866, and in Spain 1870. Some of these efforts 
have met with but limited success, while others have been very largely blessed. The 
mission was commenced in France by Messrs. Wilmarth and Sheldon. Mr. Rostan, 
a native Frenchman, had previously made explorations, which awakened hope for 
the success of the undertaking. In May, 1835, a Baptist Church was organized in 
Paris, and later, Mr. Willard instructed a few young men in studies preparatory to 
the ministry. Messrs. Wilmarth and Willard returned to this country, and the 
work in Paris was left mainly in the hands of native ministers. From 1840 to 
1872 the Church there struggled hard for existence. In the last of these years a 
costly chapel was built in the Rue de Lille, in which the Church still worships. 
There are also several small Churches in other parts of France, so that, as nearly as 
can be ascertained, there are 13 native Baptists laborers in France, male and female, 
with about 770 communicants. 

Germany. Hase, the Church historian, pronounces the German Baptists 
1 after the American type of Christianity,' and Mr. Oncken, their apostle, demands 
notice here as, under God, their honored founder. He was born at Varel, in the 
Duchy of Oldenburg, Jan. 26th, 1800, and while young went to England, where he 
became a Christian. In 1823 he accepted an appointment from the British Conti- 
nental Society as a missionary to Germany. He preached on the shores of the Ger- 
man Ocean, chiefly in Hamburg and Bremen, till 1828, when he took an agency for the 
Edinburgh Bible Society, being, meanwhile, a member of the English Independent 
Church at Hamburg, under the pastoral care of Mr. Matthews. In the winter of 
1830-31, Captain Tubbs, master of the brig Mars, and a member of the Sansom 
Street Baptist Church, Philadelphia, found his vessel ice-bound at Hamburg, and 
while detained there made his home in the family of Mr. Oncken. During his 
stay, Tubbs and Oncken spent much of their time in examining the New Testament, 

and the captain explained to him the doctrines and practices of the American Baptist 
31 



448 



PERSECUTION IN HAMBURG. 



Churches. Oncken was convinced that these Churches were modeled after the 
Gospel pattern, and expressed his wish to be immersed on his faith in Christ. 
When Captain Tubbs returned to Philadelphia, he reported these things to Dr. 
Dagg, his pastor, and to Dr. Cone, of New York. In 1833 Prof. Barnas Sears, of 
the Theological Institution at Hamilton, went to Germany to prosecute certain 
studies, and while there sought out Mr. Oncken and six others who had embraced 
the same views, and on April 22d, 1834, immersed the seven in the River Elbe, at 
Altona, near Hamburg, and on the 23d they were organized into a Baptist 

Church with Mr. Oncken for 
pastor. When this became 
known, there was no small stir 
in Hamburg. The Established 
Church, Lutheran, was in arms 
at once ; and the old ' Anabap- 
tist' skeleton was brought out 
from the cupboard promptly, 
the upper room where the little 
band worshiped was surrounded 
by a mob, its doors and win- 
dows broken, and Oncken was 
dragged before the magistrates 
and put in prison 1837 : This at 
once gave flame to the move- 
ment throughout all Germany ; 
the clergy raged, the mob 
threatened, and the magistrate 
punished, but it all amounted 
to nothing. For a time, they 
were driven from place to place, 
and Oncken says that his citations to appear before the police averaged about one a 
week for a time, but ' the threats only gave me a greater impulse.' He was fined as- 
well as imprisoned, his goods were seized, and he says : ; It happened that the Senator 
Hudtwalker, who, at that time, stood at the head of the police, was an esteemed Chris- 
tian, who, although no Baptist, considered my religious activity as fraught with bless- 
ing. . . . He was pressed hard to proceed against us, but he was not able to reconcile 
with his conscience the persecution of Christ in his members.' Mr. Oncken detailed 
to the writer, in his own house at Altona, some of the arguments by which he moved 
this chief of police. One was so novel that it must be repeated here. He said : ' Mr. 
Senator, the law of Hamburg provides that no lewd woman of the city can ply her 
wicked calling until she brings a certificate to the authorities, from the clergyman of 
her parish, stating that she was baptized in infancy, and is now a communicant in 




J. G. ONCKEN. 



MISSIONARY SPIRIT AT HAMBURG. 449 

good standing in the State Church ; then a license is given to her, to protect her 
from all harm in her wickedness. But if we persuade her to renounce her evil life 
and turn to Christ, and baptize her for the remission of her sins, as Peter taught at 
Pentecost, we are thrust into prison with the penitent woman for the crime of sav- 
ing her ! ' This argument had weight with Hudtwalker. But says Oncken : 

' His successor in office (who, however, afterwards became our friend, and has 
shown us much kindness), declared to me, at that time, that he would make every 
effort to exterminate us. When I reminded him that no religious movement could 
be suppressed by force, and said to him, " Mr. Senator, you will find that all your 
trouble and labor will be in vain," he answered : ' We'll, then, it will not be my 
fault, for as long as I can move my little finger I shall continue to move against 
you. If you wish to go to America, I will give you, together with your wife and 
children, a free passage ; but here, such sectarianism will not be endured." ' 

This state of things continued for years, but the word of God prevailed, and 
the work of grace spread all through the German States ; and from Hamburg it has 
spread to Prussia, Denmark, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Russia and Turkey. 
Within a little more than four years from its commencement, there were 4 churches 
and 120 members under Chicken's direction. In 1844 he had sent forth 17 preachers, 
organized 26 Churches, and their communicants numbered 1,500 members. The true 
prosperity of the mission, however, only began to be felt after the great Hamburg 
fire of 1848. At that date the Baptists had control of a large warehouse in the city, 
three stories high, where they received and distributed food and raiment amongst, 
and gave shelter to, the homeless poor. Here many were saved from death, and for 
the first time heard the Gospel, and the Government felt itself a debtor to those 
whom it had persecuted. In May, 1853, Mr. Oncken visited the United States and 
remained for fifteen months. Out of 70 Churches in Germany, only 8 had regular 
chapels built for the worship of God, and the American Churches aided them im 
erecting a number, $8,000 a year being promised to him for five years. During the-: 
last twenty-six years, the Hamburg Church has had additions yearly, the smallest- 
number being 5, and the largest 121, making a total of 1,317, an average of nearly 
one every Sabbath for the entire period. The largest Church connected with the 
Mission in 1867 was at Memel, in Eastern Prussia, numbering 1,524. Two missions 
were supported by the German Churches at this time, one in China and another in 
South Africa, and still later, one in the region of Mount Ararat, besides a number 
which they planted in the United States and South America. The Theological 
School at Hamburg, having a four-years' course of study, is a constant source of 
supply for the ministry, twenty students having graduated therefrom in 1886. The 
Churches are gathered into Associations, and the Associations into a Triennial Confer- 
ence. The Churches within the territory of Russia, which have sprung chiefly from 
the German Churches whose preachers have traveled into Switzerland, Poland, 
Hungary, Lithuania and Siberia, have recently formed the ' Union of Baptist Churches 
in the Russian Empire.' Dissent from the Greek Church in Russia is relentlessly 



4SO THE SWEDISH MISSION. 

crushed out, yet in many places little bands of Baptists have sprung up numbering in 
all about 12,000 persons. Itinerant missionaries in many provinces, such as Esthonia, 
are- successfully winning men to Christ. In St. Petersburg, Mr. Schiewe has 
gathered crowds of people in his own house, until the authorities have forbidden 
their further assembling on the pretense of danger to health. Within two years he 
has baptized above four hundred converts there and elsewhere. But these men of 
God pay a great price for the privilege of saving their fellow Russians. One of 
: them has been imprisoned more than forty times for preaching the Gospel. An 

-old man of seventy years was put in chains and compelled to walk sixty English 
miles for this crime, the blood running from his ankles and wrists. In one town 

"the preacher and all who listened to him were imprisoned, and few Baptist p'each- 

i ers in Russia have escaped the prison. Mr. Schiewe says : 

I, also, have not been free from it, having been imprisoued seven times for the 
^Gospel's sake, and was forbidden the country for the same reason. In the year 
1869 I was imprisoned for the first time; during the year 1872 five times, and in 
the year 1877 I was taken away by the police from my brethren and from my wife 
and children, and, together with five other brethren, was conducted over the frontier 
by guards armed with revolvers and side-arms, and banished into exile. 

The amount contributed by the Missionary Union in 1885, in behalf of the Ger- 
man Mission, was only $5,400, and no American missionary has ever been engaged in 
the work in Germany. The statistics of this mission, in 1886, give 162 Churches, 152 
chapels, and 32,211 members. Thus, in love, is God avenging the blood of the old 
German Baptist martyrs. 

Sweden. As the German mission was an outgrowth of a Baptist Church in 
Philadelphia, through the captain of a sea-going vessel, so the Swedish mission was 
directly the outcome of the Mariners' Church in New York, through a common 
sailor. This Church for Seamen had been recognized as a regular Baptist Church 
by a Council of Churches, December 1th, 1813, and Rev. Ira. R. Steward became 
its pastor. About two years after, Mr. Isaac T. Smith, one of its members, found a 
Danish sailor at the Sailors' Home, and brought him to the service of this Church. 
The man became interested, and came again about a year after, walking with a 
crutch, for he had then lost a leg. After lying in the hospital in Charleston, S. C, 
he had debated on the choice of returning to his home in Denmark, or to New York, 
but decided on the latter course. After his baptism, his brethren procured for him 
an artificial leg, thus enabling him to walk easily. He soon manifested great zeal in 
missionary work. In 1818 he was licensed to preach, and soon the ladies of the 
Bethel Union sent him as their missionary to Denmark. There, meeting another 
sailor who had lost a leg, he constructed one for him like his own artificial limb, and 
his fame soon spread amongst the wounded and crippled of the navy. The king sent 
for him and offered to set him up in that business in Copenhagen, if he would cease 
preaching and furnish legs for the disabled of the royal navy. But F. L. Rymker, 



FREDERICK 0. NILSON. 4S1 

for this was his name, concluding that it was better for his brethren that they should 
enter into life maimed, determined to preach ; which he continued to do in Den- 
mark for seven or eight years, when he went to labor in the north of Norway. The 
result of about ten years' labor there was the formation of five or six churches, the 
ordination of two preachers, the employment of five unordained, and the conversion 
and baptism of between one hundred and fifty and two hundred Norwegians, scat- 
tered over a territory of two hundred miles in length. This was the condition of 
things there in 1868. 

Right here we begin to trace the origin of the Swedish Mission to the same 
Church. Not long after Ry inker had united with this body, Gustavus "W. Schroeder, 
a young Swedish sailor who had just landed at the wharf in New York, came to 
the meeting on a Sabbath morning. He had been converted on his voyage and in- 
tended to unite with the Methodist Church, but another sailor invited him to attend 
the service with him that day at the Baptist Bethel. During the service Mr. 
Steward immersed two converted sailors on their faith in Christ. This was the first 
time that young Schroeder had seen the ordinance, and he was deeply affected, and 
said : ' This is the way that the Lord Jesus, who redeemed me with his blood, 
was baptized, and now, it would be ungrateful for me not to follow him.' This 
decided the matter ; he, too, was immersed, and soon after sailed for Gottenburg, 
Sweden. There he fell in with Rev. Frederick O. Nilson, a Methodist missionary 
of the Seamen's Friend Society, who must here tell his own story. He says, that 
through the instrumentality of 

' The dear brother Schroeder, the Lord has been pleased to awaken a spirit of 
inquiry in my mind on the subject of Baptism and the ordinances of God's house. 
The result of the inquiry has been that, after a long and sore conflict with myself, 
I have at last been obliged to submit to and receive the truth. I was baptized in 
•July, 1847, by the Rev. Mr. Oncken, in Hamburg: and on the 9th of September, 
this year, my wife and four others were baptized by a Danish brother by the name 
of Foster, a missionary of the Baptists in England. Thus the Lord has been 
pleased to commence a Church on New Testament principles even here in Sweden, 
the spiritual Spain of the North. . . . We expect great trials and suffering for our 
principles; and we have had thoughts of leaving the country, but our consciences 
would not suffer us, till we were driven out by the authorities. ... If we are pun- 
ished according to an existing law, it is a question if we do not suffer death.' 

Again, under date of March 5th, 184S, Nilson writes: 

' We have now twenty-eight Baptists ! mind, twenty-eight Baptist believers in 
Sweden. Two years ago, as I and my wife were talking about Baptist principles, we 
said to one another: u Tes, it is right ; if the Bible is true, the Baptist principles are 
the only Apostolic, the only true ones ; but no one in Sweden will ever embrace them 
besides ourselves. . . . Just as we were about in good earnest to prepare for emigration 
to America, some persons began to inquire, and to listen to our reasoning from the New 
Testament, for as yet we have had nothing but the Holy Scriptures by which to 
convince people. We are, however, not all in one place. In Gottenburg there are 
four brethren and two sisters. In another place, thirty-six English miles from town, 
there are three brethren and six sisters ; about eighteen miles from there, are six 



452 PERSECUTION IN SWEDEN. 

brethren and seven sisters ; making altogether twenty-eight. Ten days later he 
wrote, that he had baptized another ' in the sea; ' but on the 24th of April he says : 
' The truth has begun its course and is making disturbance in the enemy's camp. We 
are now thirty-five Baptists in Sweden,' and some of his brethren had been ar- 
rested because they refused to have their children christened. On July 4th, 1849, 
Nilson was brought before the Court of Consistory, in Gottenburg, on the charge of 
spreading ' religious errors,' when the presiding Bishop demanded : ' Do you, Nilson, 
acknowledge that you have been in such a place, at such a time, and there preached 
against our Evangelical Lutheran religion, and enticed people to join the errors of 
the Baptists ; and that you, even there, baptized several persons ? To this 'he re- 
plied : ' I have often, there and elsewhere, spoken the truth according to the word 
of God ; but as to the charge that I have enticed any one to embrace errors, I could 
not assent, as I always proved every thing I said by the Bible, and directed the people 
to the Bible to search for themselves. I also acknowledge having baptized persons.' 

At that time the punishment for forsaking the State religion was banishment, 
and for inducing others to leave it, a fine of two hundred thalers silver and banish- 
ment for life. In 1853 Nilson and his Church were banished, and they came to 
America. About this time, another Mr. .Nilson was banished from Sweden for be- 
coming a Roman Catholic, and the friends of religious liberty in England sought 
relief for the oppressed ones through Lord Palmerston, who, at the time, was Premier 
there. Dr. Steane, of London, opened a correspondence with a Committee in New 
York who sought to influence the Swedish government in the interests of religious 
freedom, through the American government. Dr. Cone and the writer were mem- 
bers of that Committee, and earnest appeals were made to the Swedish government, 
through Lord Palmerston and General Cass, Secretary of State, at Washington, from 
1857 to 1860. The correspondence was of a most interesting character, showing the 
British Minister and the American Secretary to be the firm friends of religious 
liberty. These letters were laid before the London and New York Committees, 
and their contents showed that his Majesty of Sweden was quite willing to sign a 
bill giving toleration to his subjects, but he was hedged in with difficulty. Indeed, 
he had introduced a measure in the Diet, in favor of enlarged religious liberty, but 
it was rejected. The case stood about this way : 1. The laws of Sweden recognized 
all its subjects as born religiously free until they took religious vows upon them 
to support the State religion. 2. Every parent was required to put his child under 
those vows within a month of its birth. 3. If these vows were ever cast off, the 
penalty was banishment. 4. This law could not be altered without the joint consent 
of the Houses of Peers, Commons and Bishops, three separate bodies, and the royal 
assent. 5. Under the appeals of the English and American governments, .aided by 
the rising popular opinion of Sweden, a bill for larger religious freedom had twice 
passed the Peers and Commons, but the House of Bishops had defeated it before it 
reached the king, who was prepared to give it signature. In time, however, Nilson's 
sentence was revoked, and he returned to labor in Sweden. 

Shortly before Nilson's banishment a Mr. Forsell and a small company in 
Stockholm had seen the need of a holy life, the abandonment of infant baptism, 



REV. A. WIBERO. 4S3 

and a Gospel order of things; and further north still, Rev. Andreas Wiberg, a cler- 
gyman of the State Church, had reached the conclusion that unregenerate men 
should not be admitted to the Lord's Table. While in that state of mind, he visited 
Germany in company with Mr. Forsell. At Hamburg they consulted Oncken, but 
Wiberg held fast to his infant baptism and returned to Stockholm. On leaving 
Hamburg, some brother presented him with ' Pengilly on Baptism,' and on full 
examination he adopted Baptist principles. Accordingly, he was immersed in the 
Baltic by Mr. Nilson at eleven o'clock on the night of July 23d, 1852, in the presence 
of many brethren and sisters. In quest of health he came to New York, united 
with the Mariners' Church, was ordained by advice of a council March 3d, 1853, 
and in due time returned to Sweden, where his labors have been greatly blessed. 
This interesting fact is connected with his return to his native land : At the Baptist 
anniversaries in Chicago, 1855, a letter was read dated from ' a cell in Stockholm 
Prison, January 25th, 1855,' and signed by a pastor, telling of the imprisonment of 
fifteen brethren and sisters, on bread and water diet, for taking communion outside 
of the State Church. The reply of the American Baptists was the appointment of 
Mr. Wiberg as a missionary of the Publication Society to Sweden. During his 
absence, fourteen pamphlets had been published against the Baptists, the court 
preacher had entered the house of Forsell with a policeman, and by force had 
sprinkled the forehead of a six-months' child. [Was he a Pedobaptist fanatic ?] In 
another place two cows had been seized and sold for the fees of a priest, who had 
christened two children against the protest of their parents, and a Bishop had given 
the solemn decision that the Baptists might exist, but they must not increase. Still, 
one of our brethren had visited Norberg, and the owner of the iron works let his 
men stop work to listen, and afterwards came with his superintendent 120 miles to 
Stockholm to be immersed. Returning, he built a chapel, and Wiberg found 23 
persons there ready for baptism. A converted Jew came to Stockholm for baptism in 
May, 1858, and returned to labor in the island of Gottland, and by the close of the 
next year there were six Churches, with 373 members on the island. A Baptist preacher 
was sent to Stockholm with a set of thieves, where he was imprisoned for preaching. 
He not only preached in prison, but, summoned from court to court, he traveled 
2,400 miles to obey. Yet he was careful to hold 144 meetings and baptize 116 con- 
verts on the journey. One night he was put in a cell, where he preached all night 
through a wall to a prisoner in the next cell, and in the morning they bade each 
other good-by without having seen each other's face. 

A young nobleman, Mr. Drake, a graduate of the State Church ministry, at the 
University of Upsala, was converted and baptized in 1855, when the people set him 
down for a lunatic. In 1880 this solitary convert met a Baptist Association in the 
same town, representing 38 churches and 3,416 members. Mr. Wiberg found 24 
Baptists at Stockholm. Soon their place of worship could not contain the people. 
His work on baptism, an octavo volume of 320 pages, had been published at Upsala, 



4S4 SWEDISH TOLERATION. 

he started a semi-monthly paper, called the ' Evangelist,' and, in 1861, he was 
obliged to visit England to collect money for a new church edifice. There he raised 
£1,100 ; then he came to the United States for the same purpose, and now in Stock- 
holm there are three Baptist Churches. The house of worship here spoken of is 
large, seating 1,200 persons, built of light colored stone ; it is well situated, very 
conveniently arranged, cost about $25,000, and is paid for. This church is known 
as the ' Bethel Kappelet ; ' its communicants number about 2,400 ; they appeared to 
the writer to be of the middle and working classes. They sustain several stations 
in the outskirts of the city and are active in foreign mission work, helping to sup- 
port a missionary in Spain and, perhaps, some in other countries. Also in Stock- 
holm is the Theological Seminary, of which Rev. K. O. Broady, a former student of 
Madison University, is president. It has sent out at least 250 ministers, and now, 
in its beautiful new building, has from twenty-five to thirty students. Rev. J. A. 
Edgren, D.D., for some time principal of the Scandinavian Department of the 
Theological Seminary at Chicago, and Rev. Mr. Truve, formerly a student at Mad- 
ison, who worked in this field with Messrs. Drake, Brady, Wiberg and others, 
created an evangelical literature for Sweden which is working wonders. The work 
has crossed the Baltic and entered Finland. Six or seven Churches have been formed 
in Norway ; one of them in Tromsoe, north of the Arctic Circle, and the most 
northerly Baptist Church on the globe. Here our brethren find no more diffi- 
culty in immersing believers once, in January and February, than the Greek 
Church does in dipping babes three times ; and, in 1874 they reported a Laplander 
amongst the converts. In 1866 the Swedish Mission was transferred from the Pub- 
lication Society to the Missionary Union. The statistics for the present year, 1886, 
give this aggregate : 434 Churches, 28,766 members, 478 preachers, the number im- 
mersed in 1885, 3,217, and the appropriations from the missionary treasury in Boston 
for that year, $6,750. 

The Swedish Baptists are yet the victims of cruel laws. The government still 
holds the absurd theory that all Swedes are born in the National Church, and that 
they cannot be legally separated therefrom. Yet the trend of modern public opinion 
has compelled it to make some provision for dissent. Under the pretense of relief 
it made a Dissenter law T in 1860, full of obnoxious restrictions, and in 1873 amended 
it, under the further pretense of removing them ; but still it exacts from them con- 
ditions to which they cannot yield and retain their self-respect. They must apply 
to the King in order to be recognized by the State, laying their creed before him 
and certifying their intention to leave the State Church ; if he grants them the right 
to exist as a Church, they must give notice to the civil authorities, that the pastor 
may be held responsible for their worship according to the creed ; all change of 
pastors and the internal affairs of the Church must be reported as a matter of 
information to the civil authorities ; no person can unite with a Baptist Church till 
he is eighteen years of age ; no person can leave the State Church to unite with Bap- 



MISSION TO SPAIN. 4S5 

tists without notifying the priest of his parish two months before doing so ; they 
shall have no schools for their children who are under fifteen years of age, for the 
teaching of religious truth, without special permission of the King in individual 
cases, imder a fine of from 5 to 500 rix dollars ; a public officer who joins the Bap- 
tists shall be dismissed from office ; a royal decree may revoke the freedom of wor- 
ship at any time, under the pretense that it is absurd, and non-compliance with these 
provisions subjects the pastor or Church to heavy fines. By a comical construction 
of the law, the State holds them all as members of the State Church, unless they 
comply with these provisions. Our brethren ridicule their forced legal construc- 
tions, and leave the authorities to classify them as they please, but go not near the 
State Church, receive no support from it, and have no respect for its pretensions, 
but stand alone. They yield no promise to be governed by the Dissenter law ; they 
consider Christ the King of their Churches, and the demands of the State and the 
King to manage or take cognizance of their internal Church affairs a usurpation. 
They claim that believers under eighteen years of age have the right from Christ 
to think for themselves, and they also claim the right to teach their own children 
under fifteen the Gospel of Christ in Sunday-school or any other school. For these 
and other reasons they say that if they placed themselves under the Dissenter law 
they would make a State Church of themselves, with the King at their head and 
the civil authority for their rulers. Thus, keeping a clear head and clean hands, it 
is a matter of indifference to them whether the law counts them in or out of the 
State Church. The result is that in Stockholm and other large towns, where the 
sentiment of the people is opposed to the enforcement of the law of 1873, its 
enforcement is not attempted. But, in more remote districts, fine and imprison- 
ment are still frequent. If our brethren stand firmly, freedom to worship God 
must in time be their inheritance. 

Spaest. This mission grew out of the temporary residence in that kingdom of 
Professor W. J. Knapp, formerly of Madison University, afterwards of Yale Col- 
lege. Previous to 1869 he had established himself as an independent missionary in 
Madrid, and the work grew upon his hands until he was obliged to ask aid of the 
Missionary Union. In 1ST0 eighteen of his hearers asked to be baptized, and a 
Church of thirty -three members was formed in Madrid, another in Alicante, one in 
La Scala, and one in Valencia. At Linares forty-one were baptized, and several 
native preachers were raised up. But Mr. Knapp was obliged to return to the 
United States, political changes connected with the government occurred, and much 
of the work ceased. Mr. Eric Lund, an earnest Swedish minister, sustained for a 
time by the Baptist Churches in Sweden, was adopted as its missionary by the Mis- 
sionary tTnion, and is its only laborer now in Spain. He resides in Barcelona, and 
gives much attention to the Swedish seamen who visit that port. A colporteur 
evangelist holds weekly meetings at Figueras, and a monthly service at La Scala ; a 
monthly evangelical paper is also issued at Barcelona by Mr. Lund. 



CHAPTER XII. 

OTHER BAPTIST MISSIONS— FOREIGN AND HOME. 

AMERICAN Baptists had been deeply interested in Foreign Missions from 
their establishment by the English Baptists in 1792 ; as is shown in their 
gifts to the mission at Serampore in 1806 and 1807. In those years $6,000 were 
sent to aid Dr. Carey in his work, by American Christians, chiefly Baptists. From 
the organization of the "'Baptist General Convention for Foreign Missions,' in 
1814, to the year 1844, the Northern and Southern Baptists worked earnestly to- 
gether. But at the latter date the question of domestic slavery not only entered 
largely into American politics, but into the Churches and religious societies of 
most American Christians. At that time it so divided the councils of American 
Baptists, that the North and South deemed it expedient to work in separate mission- 
ary organizations both at home and abroad. Hence, in 1845, a society was organized 
under the title of the ' Southern Baptist Convention,' and in 1846 the Northern 
Baptists re-organized their mission society, under the title of the ' Baptist Missionary 
Union.' The Southern Society was located at Richmond, Va., where it has con- 
tinued its operations with great zeal and wisdom. J. B. Jeter, D.D., was elected 
President, which office he filled with great efficiency for the following twenty years, 
and Rev. James B. Taylor, Secretary, who continued to serve till his death, in 1871. 
The great work which the Southern Convention has accomplished well deserves the 
volume which Dr. Tupper has devoted to the narration of its sacrifices and successes. 
It has sustained missions in Brazil, Mexico, Africa, China and Italy, and does an 
inestimable amount of home mission work in the United States, for the Convention 
combines both Home and Foreign Mission labor. A review of its work in each of 
its fields will excite gratitude in all Christian hearts. 

China. When the Southern Convention was formed, Rev. J. L. Shuck and 
Rev. I. J. Roberts, missionaries, transferred themselves to its direction and support. 
Mr. Shuck and his wife had been the Baptist missionaries in Canton, from 1836, 
and had formed the first Baptist Church there. In 1842, when Hong Kong fell 
into the hands of the British, the missionaries left Canton for a time and sought 
protection here. Mr. Shuck had baptized his first converts in Macao, in 1837, but 
the Church at Canton was not formed till 1844, when he returned. The Spirit 
of God was poured out upon his work, and he found it needful to erect a place 
of worship. At that time he lost his noble wife, and finding it necessary to bring his 
children to the United States, he brought, also, one of the Chinese converts with 



SHANGHAI AND AFRICA. 457 

him, and raised $5,000 for a chapel, but it was thought that wisdom called for the 
establishment of a mission at Shanghai. He accordingly returned to China in 1847, 
and labored faithfully till 1851 at Shanghai, where he lost his second wife, and re- 
turning to the United States, closed his useful life in South Carolina, after laboring 
in California from 1854 to 1861. 

In 1850 Messrs. Clopton, Pearcy, Johnson, Whilden, and Miss Baker, were 
added to the Canton Mission, and between the years 1854-60, Messrs. Gaillard, 
Graves and Schilling followed. A number of these soon fell on the field, were 
transferred to other stations, or were obliged to return in broken health, but in 
1860, 40 baptisms and 58 Church members were reported. Mr. and Mrs. "Williams 
and Miss Whilden went out in 1872 and did a good work, especially in schools 
amongst Chinese women. Mr. Simmons and wife reached Canton in 1871, and are 
still on the field, and Miss Stein joined them in 1879. R. H. Graves, D:D., has 
been in Canton since 1856, and for a generation has consecrated his life to his holy 
work with his faithful wife. She was a Miss Norris, of Baltimore, known to the 
writer almost from childhood as a Christian who counted no sacrifice too great for 
Jesus, and who has stood firmly at her husband's side since 1872. Dr. Graves has 
published a Life of Christ in Chinese, also a book on Scripture Geography, another 
on Homiletics, still another on our Lord's Parables, and a Hymn Book. 

Shanghai. As already stated, this mission was founded in 1847, by Messrs. 
Yates, Shuck and Tobey, when a Church of ten members was formed, and two 
native preachers were licensed to preach. When Mr. Pearcy joined the mission, in 
1848, 500 natives attended the services. In 1855, 18 public services a week were 
held, five day-schools were kept, a Chinese woman was immersed, and about 2,500 
persons heard the Gospel weekly. "Various other missionaries joined the mission, but 
after 1865 Dr. Yates and his wife were left alone. Dr. Yates has done a great work 
for China in the translation of the Scriptures into the Chinese colloquial, the speech 
of 30,000,000, and in the issue of Chinese tracts. This veteran has pushed his 
Bible translation to 1 Timothy, and continues on the field in full vigor. The Shantung 
Mission consisted of the Chefoo and the Tung-chow stations, which have been fully 
cultivated from 1860; the first by Mr. and Mrs. Hartwell and Mr. Crawford. 
In 1868 a native preacher baptized 20 converts. There are now in China 56 mis- 
sionaries and native assistants, 654 Church members and 145 pupils in the schools. 

Afeica. In 1846 the Convention established a mission in Liberia, and appointed 
John Day and A. L. Jones (colored) their missionaries ; who, at different times have 
been followed by others. Stations were established in Liberia and Sierra Leone, 
against all sorts of difficulties and discouragements, largely arising in the opposition 
of the Africans themselves, who, in many cases, have driven out the missionaries, 
especially in the Beir country. Many of those sent have died on the field, while 
others have not only lived, despite the trials of the climate, but have risen to great 
usefulness and influence as teachers and preachers. John Day, the first pastor of 



458 BRAZIL AND MEXICAN MISSIONS. 

the Church at Monrovia, established a high school there, in which not only the ele- 
mentary branches were taught, but classical and theological instruction was given. 
He died in 1859, but not until he had planted a number of Churches, many Sun- 
day-schools, and preached the Gospel, as he thought, to abont 10,000 heathen. 
Rev. T. J. Bowen established the Yoruba Mission in 1850, and between 1853 and 
1856 about a dozen missionaries went to his help. But after they had planted 
many Churches and schools, many of them fell victims to African disease, and others 
were driven out by wars and African persecution. Mr. Bowen labored with much 
zeal and success for a considerable time, but returned to the United States, and dur- 
ing the Civil War in the United States the Convention was compelled to discontinue 
the African Mission for want of means. But in 1875 it was reorganized by Messrs. 
David and Colley, who were welcomed by such of the native converts as had held 
fast their confidence in Christ. At present, Messrs. David and Eubank, with Mrs. 
Eubank, and four native laborers, are on the field at Lagos, where a new chapel has 
been erected and good promise for the future is held forth. There are stations also 
at Abbeokuta and Ogbomoshaw, with several minor points ; seven or eight mission- 
aries, native and foreign, are laboring earnestly. In 1865, 18 converts were baptized. 
There are 125 Church members in the mission and 220 scholars in the schools. 

Brazilian Mission. This work was begun in 1879, and has met with the most? 
determined opposition on the ground, so that the missionaries have suffered much in 
their work of love and reaped light fruit. The missionaries have been Messrs. 
Quillan, Bagby and Bowen, and the stations Rio de Janeiro, Santa Barbara, Bahia 
and Macio. The brethren have published two works in Portuguese, ' The True 
Baptism,' and ' Who are the Baptists,' and have circulated man}' copies of Mr. Taylor's 
tract on the 'New Birth.' The held is very hard, but the Convention is full of 
perseverance and hope. The present Church membership is 168, of whom 23 were 
baptized in the mission year 1845-46. 

Mexican Mission. This mission was taken up with Rev. J. O. Westrup, in 
1880, and had scarcely been adopted when that devoted servant of Christ was mur- 
dered by a band of Indians and Mexicans. But Mr. Powell is now on the field and 
about 12 missionaries and teachers are laboring with him in Mexico, at Saltillo, 
Patos and Parras, also in the Monclova and Rio Grande Districts, in which several 
stations there are at present about 270 Church members with 216 scholars in the 
schools. 

The Italian Mission. This has become one of the most interesting fields 
occupied by the Convention. Not only must Rome and Italy ever present a peculiar 
charm for Baptists, because of their immortal connection with Apostolic triumphs, 
but because during the Middle Ages there was always a little remnant left there 
who held fast to some of the Baptist principles of the primitive times. The archives 
of the Inquisition in Venice furnish proof that in a score of towns and villages of 
Northern Italy the ' Brothers ' were found, although they were obliged to escape to 



THE ITALIAN MISSION. 4S9 

Moravia. Then, from 1550, that court had its hands full in the attempt to exter- 
minate them. Gherlandi and Saga, especially, are of precious memory. Gherlandi's 
father had designed liim for the priesthood, but the holy life and teaching of the 
'Brothers' won him, and in 1559 he labored in Italy to bring men back to Apostolic 
truth. His capture, however, soon cut short his toils, and when thrust into prison his 
inquisitors pressed him to change his ojfinions. ' They are not opinions,' he said, ' but 
the truth, for which I am ready to die.' Though they drowned him in the lagoon at 
night, nevertheless, say the 'Baptist Chronicles : ' ' His death will be for the revela- 
tion of truth.' Saga was born in 1532 and studied at Padua, where, while sick, he 
was converted through the words of a godly artisan. Dr. Benrath says in ' Studim 
unci Kritiken] 1885, that when he became a Baptist, his relatives cast him off ; and 
that when he was ready to conduct twenty disciples to Moravia, he was betrayed 
and taken to Venice, where, after a year's confinement, sentence of death was passed, 
and in 1565 he was drowned at night in the Sea of Venice. 

Modern Baptists prize any land where such heroism has been displayed for the 
truth, and when the temporal power of the pope fell and Italian unity opened the 
gates of Borne to free missionary labor, the Southern Convention was not slow to 
send a man to that post. Dr. W. N. Cote, one of its missionaries on the Continent 
of Europe, formed a Church of eighteen members in Rome in 1871, but the little 
flock passed through grave troubles, and Mr. Cote's connection with the Convention 
ceased. In 1873 Bev. George B. Taylor, son of the first Secretary, James B. Taylor, 
was appointed to take charge of the mission. He made his way to Rome, a beauti- 
ful place of worship was built at a cost of $30,000, and after laboring with the 
greatest devotion and wisdom, and with large success, ill-health compelled him to re- 
turn to Virginia in 1885. Meanwhile the mission is conducted under the general 
direction of Rev. J. H. Eager, and is in a prosperous condition. The Italian Bap- 
tists are beset with peculiar difficulties from many sources, but they are pronounced 
Baptists, and stand resolutely by their principles. For mutual aid they have formed 
themselves into an ' Apostolical Baptist Union,' and support a journal known as ' // 
Testimonio? They are also developing the practice of self-support somewhat 
rapidly. They have stations at Rome, Tone Pellice, Pinerola, Milan, Venice, Bo- 
logna, Modena, Carpi, Bari, Barletta and the Island of Sardinia. Many of these 
interests are small, but they aggregate about 288 members. The Foreign Mission 
Stations of the Southern Baptist Convention number altogether, Stations, 27 ; 
Out-stations, 26 ; Male Missionaries, Foreign and Native, 41 ; Female Missionaries, 33 ; 
Churches, 40 ; Communicants, 1,450 ; number added in 1885-86, 209. 

Indian Missions. A great work has been done for the Ckristianization of 
many Indian tribes by the Southern Convention, chiefly the Cherokees, Creeks, 
Choctaws, Chickasaws and Seminoles. Noted amongst the white missionaries to 
these aborigines, have been Messrs. Buckner, Moffat, Burns, Preston and Murrow, 
and of converted Indians themselves there have been Peter Folsom, Simon Hancock, 



460 INDIAN MISSIONS. 

Lewis and William Cass and John Jumper. Amongst the various tribes there are 
5 Associations, embracing about 8,000 communicants, with . many secular and Sun- 
day-schools and meeting-houses. 

The Home Mission work of the Convention is done chiefly through the State 
Mission Board, and is known as the Domestic work. The Domestic Board first took 
its separate existence in 1845, with Bev. Bussell Holman as Corresponding Secre- 
tai-y, who was followed in due time by Bev. Thomas F. Curtis, Bev. Joseph Walker, 
and again by Mr. Holman. His successors were Bev. M. T. Sumner and Dr. 
Mcintosh; all of whom did a great work for the feeble Churches in almost every 
Southern city, and in every Southern State, especially in Texas, Florida, Arkansas 
and Georgia. Over $1,100,000 have been expended on the field, and fully 40,000 
persons have been baptized on their faith in Christ Jesus. 

Missionary efforts for the Indians of North America were commenced by the 
Baptist General Convention in 1817, and prosecuted by the Baptists of the North 
and South together until 1846. After that the Missionary Union prosecuted its 
Indian missionary work alone till 18G5, when it transferred that department to the 
American Baptist Home Mission Society. The tribes in which this work was prose- 
cuted during this period, were the Fottawatomies and Miamies, 1817 ; Cherokees, 
in North Carolina, 1818 ; Ottawas, 1822 ; Creeks, 1823 ; Oneidas and Tonawandas, 
including the Tuscaroras, 1824; Choctaws, 1826; Ojibwas, 1828; Shawnees, 1831; 
Otoes, 1833 ; Omahas, 1833 ; Delawares, including the Stockbridges, 1833 ; and 
Kickapoos, 1834. The missionaries employed, male and female, numbered upwards 
of 60, and the missions which yielded the largest fruit were those amongst the 
Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Ojibwas, Delawares, and Shawnees. The whole num- 
ber of converts baptized were about 2,000, of whom three quarters were of the 
Cherokee nation. 

In 1826 seven young Fottawatomies were sent as students to Hamilton Theo- 
logical Seminary for instruction, and two to Vermont as students of medicine. In 
1833 a Cherokee native preacher was ordained, another in 1S44; in 1850 two more, 
and in 1852, yet another. In 1835 there was a Choctaw native preacher, and in 1842, 
there were two others ; a Creek Indian became a preacher in 1837, and a Tuscarora 
chief was ordained pastor in his own tribe in 1838. The earliest stations amongst the 
Pottawatomies were called Carey and Thomas stations, in honor of the missionaries in 
India. Bev. Isaac McCoy was the founder of both these missions. In 1831 these 
Indians were removed farther westward by the government of the United States, 
became mixed with other tribes, and the work was suspended in 1844. In 1822 
schools were formed among the Ottawas and a Church in 1832, with 24 members. 
They contributed a sum equal to thirty cents per member for missions in 1849 ; and 
in 1854 the work was transferred to the Indian Territory. The Cherokee station, in 
North Carolina, was begun by Bev. Evan Jones and Mr. Boberts in 1825, and in 
1838, 156 natives were baptized in the space of ten months. After they were re- 



DOMESTIC MISSIONS. 461 

moved to the Indian Territory the work progressed, and in two years their Church 
numbered 600 members. Mr. Fry joined the station in 1842, and the members 
were estimated at 1,000. All the Cherokee Churches had meeting-houses, and there 
was also amongst them a printing-office and a female high school. A missionary 
periodical was established in 1844, and the translation of the New Testament was com- 
pleted in 1846. The tribe may well be considered a civilized and Christian nation. 
The mission amongst the Delawares began with two preaching places ; their first 
missionary was Rev. J. G. Pratt. This mission was finally absorbed in that to the 
Shawnees. Mr. Bingham conducted the mission to the Ojibwas at Sault Ste. Mary, 
from 1828 to 1857 ; the tribe had dwindled away through death and emigration, and 
the work was given up. Rev. Moses Merrill labored amongst the Otoes from 1833 
to 1840, when he died on the field after translating portions of Scripture into the 
Otoe language ; after his death that mission was discontinued. Mr. Willard, 
formerly missionary to France, and others, remained amongst the Shawnees from 
1831 to 1862. At an earlier date, there were missions amongst two or three tribes 
in "Western New York, but the advancing tide of civilization swept them away. 
Schoolcraft estimates the number of Indians at the discovery of America within the 
present area of the United States at 1,000,000, but the Report of the United States 
Commissioner for 1882 gives their number as only 259,632. 

After the Revolutionary War the disjointed condition of the Baptist denomina- 
tion unfitted it for general missionary work. It needed concert of action, and yet, 
nothing could force organization upon it so effectually as the pressure of missionary 
work. From the beginning our people felt the need of pressing the work of per- 
sonal regeneration, and yet every form of jealousy for reserved rights repelled them 
from formal organization. Still, the Associations were impelled to co-operation, and 
helped the Churches to feel their way to concert of action. The Shaftesbury Asso- 
ciation, which comprised North-eastern New York and Western Massachusetts, in 
1802, sent out Caleb Blood, paying his traveling expenses through Central New 
York and over the Niagara River into Upper Canada. At that time the Associations, 
especially the Philadelphia, the Warren and the Shaftesbury, had largely imbibed 
the missionary spirit and were engaged in home evangelization. The first missionary 
organization in which American Baptists were active, outside of these, so far as is 
known, was the ' Boston Female Society for Missionary Purposes.' It was formed 
in 1800 with 14 members, part of whom were Congregationalists. For the first 
year it expended $150 in New England. Several years after this, 1802, a few 
brethren in Boston, without the action of the Churches, f ormed the ' Massachusetts 
Domestic Missionary Society,' the object of which was ' to furnish occasional preach- 
ing, and to promote the knowledge of evangelic truth in the new settlements of these 
United States, or further, if circumstances should render it proper.' In the first 
year of its operations it sent Joseph Cornell through the north-western part of the 
State of New York, and two other missionaries to Maine and New Hampshire. 



462 FIRST CHURCHES OF KENTUCKY. 

Cornell's journey occupied six months ; he traveled 1,000 miles, and preached in 46 
townships, reporting that in 41 of these the people had no religious instruction, 
and that in 13 no minister had ever preached. This Society existed thirty 
years'and had missionaries in ten States, West as far as Illinois, and South as far 
as Mississippi. John Ide, Edward Davenport, Amos Chase, Nathanael Kendrick, 
John M. Peck and James E. Welch were amongst its missionaries. It afterward 
became the parent of the present Home Mission Society. 

There had been scattered communities of Baptists in Missouri from the settle- 
ment of that country. Thomas Johnson, of Georgia, had visited it in 1799, while 
it was under foreign dominion and Roman Catholic control. A few families from 
the Carolinas, about 1796, made a settlement in St. Louis County. John Clark, an 
Irish Methodist, became a Baptist, and probably was the first Baptist who ever 
preached west of the Mississippi. He gathered a Church in 1807. 

Before considering the next mission organization, it will be in chronological 
order here to notice that great movement of explorers and first settlers which 
planted Baptist Churches in Kentucky at so early a date. Most of its early inhabit- 
ants were from Virginia and the Carolinas, principally from Virginia ; most of 
them were Baptists in their religion, and their early ministers brought the strong 
marks and earnest spirit of their ministry with them. The settlers of Kentucky 
were generally men of powerful frame and dauntless courage, backwoodsmen, splen- 
didly adapted to the subjugation of this great empire of forests, and these ministers 
met exactly the wants of the people. For about a score of years they were exposed 
to the wrath of the savages, who abounded in this world of wilderness. The en- 
croachments of the whites had driven them back from their sea-coast domains, 
and as these slipped out of their hands, as was natural, they became sullen and 
vengeful. White emigrants found their crops destroyed, their stock driven off, 
their buildings burnt, and their wily foe in ambush to slaughter them in the dark 
forests. Dr. Spencer gives an illustrative case. The Cook family, from which 
sprang Abraham Cook, a devout Baptist minister, had removed in 1780 to the forks 
of Elkhorn, when the father died, leaving his widow and a large family unprotected 
on this frontier. She struggled with poverty and danger till the year 1792, when 
her sons, Hosea and Jesse, married. One day a band of Indians fell upon these two 
sons, while they were shearing sheep, and murdered one of them. The other, mor- 
tally wounded, fled to the house, barred the door and fell dead. The two women 
must now fight the Indians to save themselves and their babes. They had one rifle, 
but no shot. Finding a musket-ball, however, in her desperation one of the women 
bit it in two with her teeth, and fired one half at an Indian through a crevice in her 
log-house. He sprang into the air and fell dead. The savages then tried to force 
the door, but failing, sprang to the roof to fire the house. As the flames began to 
kindle, one of the heroines climbed the loft and quenched the fire with water. The 
Indians fired the roof the second time, but the women, having no more water 



KENTUCKY CONTINUED. 468 

in the house, took eggs and quenched the fire with them. The Indians kindled the 
flames the third time, when, having neither eggs nor water left, the poor woman 
tore the jacket from her murdered husband, saturated with his blood, and smothered 
the flames with that. Thus baffled, the savages retired, leaving these young mothers 
clasping their babes to their bosoms, obliged themselves to bury their slaughtered hus- 
bands. Many of the early ministers suffered much from the Indians. It is supposed 
that Rev. John Gerrard was murdered by them. 

The Severns Valley Baptist Church was the first organized in Kentucky, 
about forty miles south of Louisville, at what is now Elizabeth town, though the 
church still bears its ancient name. On June 18, 1781, eighteen Baptists met in 
the wilderness, under a green sugar-tree, and there, directed by Rev. Joseph Bar- 
nett, from Virginia, formed themselves into a Baptist Church, choosing Rev. John 
Gerrard as their pastor. Cedar Creek was the second, founded July 4th, 1781, and 
Gilbert's Creek the third, constituted under the leadership of Lewis Craig. For 
several years these Churches, and others that were formed, met with no marks 
of signal prosperity ; but, in 1785, they were visited by a blessed revival of religion, 
especially those in Upper Kentucky. In 1781 a Church was gathered in the Bear 
Grass region, about thirty miles from what is now Louisville. At that time several 
able ministers had settled in the new territory, and the young Churches were greatly 
prospered. In 1787 Rev. John Gano left his pastoral charge in New York and 
settled in Kentucky, greatly strengthening the hands of his brethren. This State 
has now become the fourth Baptist State in the Union in point of numbers, having 
61 Associations, 896 ministers, 1,731 Churches, 183,688 members. Last year, 1S85, 
10,718 persons were immersed into the fellowship of those Churches. Our brethren 
there have always expected and received ' large things.' In the olden times Jere- 
miah Vardeman baptized 8,000, Gilbert Mason 1,000, James M. Coleman 1,000, and 
Daniel Buckner 2,500. 

In returning to speak of organized missionary effort, it may be stated that in 
1807 a number of brethren, within the limits of the Otsego Association, met on the 
27th of August, at Pompey, Onondaga County, "N. Y., and organized the Lake Mis- 
sionary Society, for the ' promotion of the missionary enterprise in the destitute 
regions around.' Its first missionary was Rev. Salmon Morton, who was engaged at 
$1 a week. Two years later the name of the society was changed to the ' Hamilton 
Missionary Society.' It was the day of small things, for, in 1815, the society was 
able to provide only for forty weeks' labor in the course of a year, and it was 
greatly encouraged to receive from the ' Hamilton Female Missionary Society ' in 
1812, 'twenty yards of fulled cloth,' to replenish its treasury. 

Still, the missionary spirit possessed the hearts of the American Baptists. At 
the meeting of the Triennial Convention, held in Philadelphia, May 17th, 1817, 
the sphere of its operations was enlarged by authorizing the Board ' to appropriate 
a portion of the funds to domestic missionary purposes.' This action diverted atten- 



464 THE TRIENNIAL CONVENTION. 

tion for a time from the original purpose of the Convention, for during the three 
ensuing years only three additional missionaries were sent into foreign lands. The 
Convention was feeling its way, in the absence of missionary experience, and its 
heart desired to take in the world. Luther Rice had influenced its action by his 
enlarged plans and holy aims. He possessed great ability, was of most commanding 
presence and an earnest speaker, and his recent conversion to Baptist principles had 
stirred the whole country. After his tour through the South and "West, he reported 
a recommendation that a mission should be established in the West, not only on 
account of the importance of the region in itself, but it was ' indispensably necessary 
to satisfy the wishes and expectations of pious people in all parts of the United 
States,' and the Convention took his view of the case. Hence, it gave power to the 
Board to send missionaries into ' such parts of this country where the seed of the 
"Word may be advantageously cast, and which mission societies on a small scale do 
not effectively reach.' The direct result of this vote was the appointment of John 
M. Peck and James E. "Welch to this work, and the appropriation of $1,000 for 
their support. They went West, acting under this commission, where they established 
many Churches, amongst them the Church at St. Louis, in the year 1817. James 
McCoy and Humphrey Posey were sent out under similar commissions to the Indians. 

In 1820 the Convention saw that it had attempted too much, and withdrew its 
support from Messrs. Peck and Welch. Mr. Welch returned East, and Mr. Peck 
was taken up and supported by the Massachusetts Society. For years he tried in 
vain to induce the Triennial Convention to resume its work in the West, and so from 
1820 to 1832 home mission work was thrown back upon local organizations, Asso- 
ciations and State Conventions. In New York, the Convention was formed in 
1821, in Massachusetts, 1824 ; and 12 others previous to 1832. After nine years, 
labor in the West, Mr. Peck returned to ISTew England to arouse new interest in the 
work of western evangelization, and explained to the Massachusetts Society, in Dr. 
Baldwin's Church, in Boston, the necessities of this field. He also visited Dr. 
Going, pastor of the Church in Worcester, Mass., and moved his bold but sound 
judgment and warm heart to examine the subject seriously. The two men corre- 
sponded constantly on the subject for five years, when Drs. Going and Bolles resolved 
to visit and inspect the West for themselves. The result was, that the three men 
sketched a plan, ' to lend efficient aid with promptitude ; ' and on returning, Dr. 
Going convinced the Massachusetts Society that a General Home Mission Society 
should be formed. It was willing to turn over all its interests to a new society, and 
used its influence to secure its organization ; the result was, that on April 27th, 1832, 
the American Baptist Home Mission Society was formed in ISTew York city, with 
Hon. Heman Lincoln, of Massachusetts, for its President, Dr. Going for its Corre- 
sponding Secretary, and William Colgate for its Treasurer. 

In Dr. Going's first report to the Executive Committee of the new society, 
he made an elaborate statement of Baptist strength in the United States, and the 



THE HOME MISSION SOCIETY. 46S 

ratio of ministerial supply in various parts of the country. He estimated the whole 
number of communicants at 385,259, ministers 3,024, Churches 5,321, and Asso- 
ciations, 302. He reckoned the destitution in the "Western States as 17 per cent, 
greater than in the Eastern ; and while the Churches of New York and New 
England were supplied with ministers seven eighths of the time, the Middle States 
were only supplied three eighths, and the Western one eighth. He further calculated 
that all the ministerial labor in the Valley of the Mississippi was only equal to that 
of 200 pastors in the East. The managers of the new society 'Resolved ' with what 
they regarded as great boldness, that $10,000 ought to be raised and expended dur- 
ing the first year, and felt very grateful when Mr. Colgate reported $6,586 73, as 
the result of the year's work. But on this sum they had carried 89 missionaries, 
laboring in 19 States and Territories through that year. In the sixth year the 
receipts were $17,232 18, missionaries 116, and 1,421 persons baptized. It is dif- 
ficult to get at the separate statistics for all the preceding five years, as they were 
mixed up with the State Conventions, which held certain auxiliary relations to the 
society. In October, 1837, Dr. Going accepted the presidency of the Literary and 
Theological Institute at Granville, Ohio, and in 1839, Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, of 
Troy, N. Y., was elected to fill his place as Home Mission Secretary. As Dr. Going 
has become so thoroughly historical amongst American Baptists, a fuller sketch of 
him will be desired. 

Jonathan Going, D.D., was of Scotch descent, and was born at Reading, Ver- 
mont, March 7th, 1786. He graduated from Brown University in the class of 1809 ;; 
and during his first year at college, April 6, 1806, he united with the First Baptist. 
Church at Providence, under the care of Rev. Stephen Gano. He pursued his the- 
ological studies for a time after his graduation, with President Messer, and then 
became pastor of the Church at Cavendish, Conn., 1811-1815. In 1815 he became 
pastor of the Church at Worcester, Mass., and during the first year of his service 
organized the first Sunday-school in Worcester Co. At that time ardent spirits 
were in common use amongst Church members and ministers, but Mr. Going took 
high ground against this practice. It is said that a neighboring Church applied to 
the Doctor for aid, when he asked if that congregation could not support itself by 
economizing in the use of liquor ? The reply was : ' I think not, sir, I buy mine 
now by the barrel, at the lowest wholesale rates.' The personal influence of Dr. 
Going made him a sort of Bishop in all the surrounding country. During his pas- 
torate of 16 years at Worcester, 350 additions were made to his Church. Hon. 
Isaac Davis, for many years a member of his Church and a personal friend, said of 
him : ' If there was an ordination, a revival of religion, a difficulty in a Church, or 
a public meeting in aid of some benevolent object, within 30 or 40 miles, the 
services of our pastor were very likely to be called for. Every body saw that 
his heart was in the great cause, not only of benevolent action but of the common 
Christianity, and every body expected that he would respond cheerfully and effectively 



466 REV. DR. HILL. 

to all reasonable claims tliat were made upon him.' After taking charge of Gran- 
ville College, his influence in Ohio became as extensive and healthful as in Massa- 
chusetts, but he was permitted to fill his place only till November 9, 1844, when he 
fell asleep in Jesus, lamented by all who knew him. 

Much might be said of Dr. Hill's secretaryship in the Home Mission Society, 
which he filled for 22 years. He was a native of Newport, R I., born April 5, 
1793. He entered the Pennsylvania University to prepare for the medical profes- 
sion, but was converted at the age of 19 and became a pastor at 25. He served two 
•smaller Churches first, then spent 9 years as pastor of the First Church, New 
-Haven, Conn., and 10 years as pastor of the First Church Troy, N Y., before he 
-•accepted the place vacated by Dr. Going. During the period of his secretaryship 
^the country and the Society were agitated by several very exciting and perplexing 
"questions, but under his firm and judicious management, it derived no serious injury 
from any of them. He kept his head and heart upon the one aim of the Society, 
' North America for Christ,' and he did much to bring it to the Saviour's feet. One 
of the serious practical difficulties which beset the Society in the prosecution of its 
western work was not readily overcome. In many sections a salaried ministry was 
denounced, and many otherwise sensible people looked upon the plan of missions as 
a speculation and the missionaries were set down as hirelings. In November, 1833, 
a Convention met in Cincinnati, where representative men from various portions of 
the South and West met representatives of the Home Mission Society, face to face, 
to exchange views on the subject. This meeting did much to dispel prejudice 
and ignorance. Still, for many years the narrow-minded folk in the West treated 
the honest, hard working missionaries much as they would be treated by fairly 
decent pagans. Only persistent work and high Christian character conquered the 
recognition of their gifts and self-sacrificing life. 

The settlement of the interior in regard to intelligence, virtue and religion, as 
well as free government, had been a matter of great solicitude with the earlier states- 
men of the country. Under the colonial date of July 2d, 1756, Benjamin Franklin 
wrote to George Whitefield : 

' You mention your frequent wish that you were a chaplain in the American 
Army. I sometimes wish that you and I were jointly employed by the crown to 
settle a colony on the Ohio. I imagine that we could do it effectually, and without 
putting the nation to much expense ; but, I fear, we shall never be called upon for 
such a service. What a glorious tiling it would be to settle in that fine country a 
large, strong body of religious and industrious people ! What a security to the other 
colonies, and advantage to Britain, by increasing her people, territory, strength and 
commerce ! Might it not greatly facilitate the introduction of pure religion among 
the heathen, if we could by such a colony, show them a better sample of Christians 
than they commonly see in our Indian traders ? — the most vicious and abandoned 
wretches of our nation ! Life, like a dramatic piece, should not only be conducted 
with regularity, but, methinks, it should finish handsomely. Being now in the last 
act, I begin to cast about for something fit to end with. Or, if mine be more prop- 
erly compared to an epigram, as some of its lines are but barely tolerable, I am 



FRANKLIN AND WHITEFIELD. 467 

very desirous of concluding with a bright point. In such an enterprise. I could 
spend the remainder of life with pleasure, and I firmly believe God would bless us 
with success, if we undertake it with a sincere regard to his honor, the service of 
our gracious king, and (which is the same thing) the public good.' 

Although the wish of Franklin to enter the heart of the country with White- 
field, as missionaries, for ' the introduction of pure religion among the heathen,' and 
to found a colony to the ' honor ' of God, it was reserved to others, as honorable and 
as noble, to compose an ' epigram' there, under a Republic of which neither of these 
great men dreamed when the philosopher expressed this wish. In a quiet way 
single missionaries there have done an almost superhuman work. Fourteen of the 
strongest Churches in Illinois and Michigan were planted by that pure-hearted man, 
Thomas Powell, as well as the Illinois River Association. Out of this body in turn 
have come the Ottowa, Rock River, East Illinois River and the McLean Associations, 
which were organized under his direction. Dr. Temple wrote his friend, Dr. Som- 
mers, in 1833, concerning Chicago, then, a mere trading post : ' "We have no servant 
of the Lord Jesus to proclaim the glad tidings of salvation. ... I write to beg that 
you will see Brother Going and ask that a young man of first-rate talent, whose 
whole heart is in the cause of Christ, may be sent to it immediately. I will myself 
become responsible for $200 per annum for such a missionary.' Dr. Going found 
the young man in Rev. A. B. Freeman, who had just graduated from Hamilton, 
and justified what seemed hasty, by saying that ' Chicago promises to become a very 
important place on very many accounts, and it is deemed highly important that we 
have a footing there at an early date.' In October, 1833, the First Church in 
Chicago was organized in what is to-day one of the centers of power in our land. 

Under the administration of Dr. Hill, the work of the Home Mission Society 
began to assume its fuller proportion of importance to American Baptists. In 1832 
its principal field was the Mississippi Valley, extending from Galena to New Orleans, 
embracing about 4,000,000 people, but in twenty years from that time the vast 
stretch west of the great river was opened up to the Pacific Ocean. What, in 1832', 
stood upon the maps as the ' Great American Desert,' an immense empire of black 
waste, became Kansas, Oregon, Minnesota, as States ; while Nebraska, Washington, 
Dakota, Nevada and Colorado were becoming rapidly colonized in 1852. At the 
close of Dr. Hill's service, the operations of the Society extended into Kansas and 
the Territory of Nebraska, 160 miles up the Missouri River from the Kansas line ; 
up the Mississippi to its junction with the St. Croix, thence to the Falls of the St. 
Croix, and to the head of Lake Superior. The necessity had been forced upon the 
Society of doing something to assist infant Churches to secure houses of worship. 
This was a new order of work, and at first, appropriations were made in the form of 
loans at a light interest of two per cent. Many of the Churches were paying 8 to 
12 per cent., and the aim was to help them to help themselves, by making the interest 
as nearly nominal as might be, and when the principal was re-paid, to re-loan it to 



468 DBS. BACKUS AND SIMMON'S. 

other Churches for similar use. Dr. Hill published a plea for the Church Edifice 
Fund, aiming to raise $100,000 for this purpose. The plan was a wise one, but the 
movement had scarcely been inaugurated when the financial panic of 1857 fell upon 
the country, and the responses in money were light. In 1866, when the funds were 
used only in the form of loans and the gift system had ceased, the receipts ran up 
to $72,005 13, of which $30,000 was made a permanent fund. Rev. E. E. L. Taylor, 
D.D., of Brooklyn, 1ST. Y., a man of large ability every way and a most successful 
pastor, was appointed to raise the permanent fund to $500,000. He labored nobly 
in his work till 1874:, when his Lord called him to his temple above. He had, 
however, secured $130,000 for the fund. 

Dr. Hill declined further service in 1862, and Dr. Jay S. Backus, one of the 
most vigorous minds and consecrated pastors in the denomination, was chosen as his 
successor. He served from 1862 to 1867 as the only Secretary, but in 1867 Rev. J. B. 
Simmons, D.D., of Philadelphia, was appointed an additional Corresponding Secre- 
tary, with special reference to the Freed men's work, and in 1869 Dr. Taylor was 
added to his colleagues with special regard to the Church Edifice Fund. Dr. Sim- 
mons stood the peer of his two fellow-secretaries in wisdom and goodness. He was 
a graduate of Brown University and of Newton Theological Seminary, and had 
done delightful pastoral work in Indianapolis and Philadelphia. Thus equipped, 
the Society stood ready to follow the lead of these three men of God, and well did 
each of them "stand in his lot. The times were extremely trying, for the country 
had just passed through its severe Civil War, slavery had ceased to exist, and an un- 
expected change of circumstances called for various modifications in the work of the 
Society. The new secretaryship, filled by Dr. Summons, sprang from these necessary 
changes. At the close of the war the Annual Meeting of the Society was held at 
St. Louis, May, 1865, when it resolved to prosecute missionary work amongst the 
Freedmen. Dr. Edward Lathrop and Mr. J. B. Hoyt were sent to visit the 
Southern Baptists to invite their co-operation in this work, and in 1867 a delegation 
was sent to the Southern Baptist Convention, at Baltimore, to further that object. 
That Convention reciprocated these brotherly interchanges, and appointed a similar 
delegation to meet the Home Mission Society, a few days later, at its annual meeting, 
in New York. Drs. Jeter and J. A. Broadus made addresses in which conciliation 
and brotherly affection abounded. Various methods of practical co-operation were 
suggested, but the Committee which reported on the subject could do little more 
than recommend that co-operation should be sought and had in all ways that should 
be found practicable. 

In December, 1864, however, a company of Baptists had, on their personal re- 
sponsibility, formed ' The National Theological Institute,' at Washington, to provide 
religious and educational instruction for the Freedmen. At the St. Louis meeting 
of the Home Mission Society in 1845, it was reported that $4,978 69 had been re- 
ceived by its Treasurer for a Freedmen's Fund, and that the Society had already 



NATIONAL THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE. 469 

68 missionaries laboring amongst them in twelve Southern States. The Board was 
instructed to continue this work. The Institute conferred with the Home Missionary 
Society as to the best method of conducting this work, for, in 1867, it had schools 
under its direction at Washington, Alexandria, "Williamsburg and Lynchburg, with 
$3,000 in books and clothing, and §18,000 in money, for their support. The result of 
much conference was, a recommendation made by a committee, consisting of Messrs. 
Mason, Hague, T. D. Anderson, Fulton, Bishop, Peck and Armitage, to the Home 
Mission Board, to organize a special department for this work. This being done, Dr. 
Simmons was chosen Secretary by the Society, especially for this department. His 
work naturally divided itself into missionary and educational branches. All or- 
dained missionaries, of whom there were about 30 each year, were instructed to give 
religious tuition to classes of colored ministers. Dr. Mai'ston reported, that in two 
years 1,527 ministers and 696 deacons were present at classes which he held. Before 
Dr. Simmons's election, amongst others, Prof. H. J. Ripley, at Savannah, Ga. ; Dr. 
Solomon Peck, at Beaufort, !N". C. ; Rev. H. L. Wayland, at Nashville, Tenn. ; and 
Rev. D. W. Phillips, at Knoxville, Tenn. ; were engaged in this important work, so 
that over 4,000 pupils were gathered into these schools. The Society held that the 
teacher for the common school was secondary to the education of the colored 
preacher. Teachers were impressed with the responsibility of winning souls to 
Christ, and those converted in the schools were sent forth to become teachers, pas- 
tors' wives, and missionaries to their own people. Fifteen institutions for the 
colored people have been established with an enrollment in 1885 of 2,955 pupils, 
1,391 of them young men, 1,564 young women and 103 teachers. These institu- 
tions are all designed primarily for those who are to be preachers or teachers ; two 
are for the separate instruction of women, and one is distinctively a Theological Insti- 
tution. Industrial education is given in nearly all of them, and the demand for 
medical education, so closely connected with the moral and religious education of 
the race, is one that generous patrons are considering. Dr. Simmons continued in 
this work till 1874, and it is still prosecuted with vigor and success. 

Mrs. Benedict, of Pawtucket, R. I., widow of Deacon Stephen Benedict, gave 
$30,000 for the establishment of the Benedict Institute, in Columbia, S. C. 
Deacon Holbrook Chamberlain, of Brooklyn, 1ST. Y., gave fully $150,000 for the 
Freedmen's work, most of it for the founding and support of the Leland University, 
at JSTew Orleans, La., and others gave large sums for the same cause. After the 
Civil War the colored Baptists in the South constituted separate Churches and As- 
sociations of their own, though previous to that, as a rule, they had been members 
of the same Churches with the white Baptists. At its session, held at Charleston, 
1875, the Southern Convention said : 

' In the impoverished condition of the South, and with the need of strengthen- 
ing the special work which the Southern Baptist Convention is committed to prose- 
cute, there is no probability of an early endowment of schools under our charge for 



470 COLORED SEMINARIES. 

the better education of a colored ministry. The Convention has adopted the policy 
of sustaining students at the seminaries controlled by the American Baptist Home 
Mission Society. It is much to be desired that larger contributions for this purpose 
may be secured from both white and colored Baptists.' 

The Georgia Baptist Convention said in the same year : 

' The Institute for colored ministers, under the care and instruction of our 
esteemed brother, J. T. Robert, is doing a noble work for our colored population. 
We trust that many will avail themselves of the excellent course of instruction there, 
and that the school may prove an incalculable blessing in evangelizing and elevating 
the race.' In 1878 it added : ' We recommend our brethren to aid in sending pious 
and promising young men, who have the ministry in view, to this school, which con= 
sideration was urged in view of the fact, among other facts, that Romanists are making 
strenuous efforts to control our colored people, by giving them cheap or gratuitous in- 
struction.' And in 1879 the same Convention resolved that : ' The institution deserves 
our sympathy and most cordial co-operation. It is doing a most important work, and 
is indispensable as an educator of this most needy class of our population.' 

The Baptist Seminary and the Spelman Seminary, located at Atlanta, are doing 
a truly wonderful work. The latter was largely endowed by the philanthropist, 
John D. Rockefeller, and bears Mrs. Rockefeller's maiden name. It has 626 pupils, 
and its income for 1885 was $7,133 ; Sidney Root, Esq., of Atlanta, has been unwearied 
in his zeal to build up both these useful institutions. 

At the Annual Meeting, held in Washington, in 1871, the Society elected but 
one Corresponding Secretary to take charge of the mission and educational work, 
Dr. Nathan Bishop ; with Dr. Taylor in charge of the Church Edifice Fund. But 
as Dr. Taylor died that year, Dr. Bishop was left alone. From 1876 to 1879 Dr. 
Cutting served as Corresponding Secretary, when he was succeeded by Rev. H. L. 
Morehouse, D.D., the present Secretary, whose very successful administration has 
brought up the Society to a position commensurate with the times, and to a position 
of strength worthy of its preceding history. 

As Nathan Bishop, LL. D., was a layman, and did so much for the interests of 
the Baptist denomination generally, this chapter cannot be more fittingly closed 
than by a brief sketch of his life and labors. He was pre-eminently a scholar, a 
Christain gentleman, a philanthropist and a man of large religious affairs. He was 
born in Oneida County, N. Y., August 12th, 1808. His father was a Justice 
of the Peace and a farmer, and brought up his son to habits of thorough industry 
and economy. While yet a youth, Nathan was converted, under the labors of Rev. 
P. P. Brown, and united with the Baptist Church at Yernon. Early he displayed 
an uncommon love for knowledge with a highly consistent zeal for Christ, a rare 
executive ability and a mature self-possession. At eighteen, he entered the Acad- 
emy at Hamilton, N. Y., and Brown University in the year 1832. There he became 
a model student, known by all as full of quiet energy, a Christian of deep convic- 
tions, delighting in hard work, manly, self-denying and benevolent, and graduated 
with high honor. In 1838 he was appointed Superintendent of Common Schools 



DR. NATHAN BISHOP. 



47 1 



in Providence, where he re-organized the whole plan of popular education. In 1851 
he filled the same office in Bostou, and for six years devoted his great ability to elevat- 
ing its common schools to a very high rank. He married and settled in ~New York in 
1858, and here he identified himself with every line of public beneficence, to the time 
of his death, August 7th, 1880. He was a leader in the Christian Commission, the 
Board of State Commissions of Public Charities, the Sabbath Committee, the American 
Bible Society, the Evangelical Alliance ; and, under the administration of General 
Grant, he served in the Board of the United States Indian Commissioners. No man 
contributed more invaluable time and 
toil to the development and up-build- 
ing of Yassar College, or to the Kew 
York Orphan Asylum, and, in his de- 
nomination, every department of ben- 
evolent operation felt his influence. 
In the City Mission, the Social Union 
and the Home for the Aged, he put 
forth a molding and strengthening 
hand from their organization. But 
the greatest service, and that which 
must be ever associated with his hon- 
ored name, was rendered in association 
with Baptist Missionary work, in 
both the Home and Foreign depart- 
ments. Although never a wealthy 
man, he was a prodigy of liberality all 
his life, and when he died he left the 
most of his property for mission uses. For many years he gave his most precious time 
to the Home Mission Society, and for two years discharged the duties of its Corre- 
sponding Secretaryship without charge, besides increasing his contributions to the 
treasury. "While he was Secretary, he and Mrs. Bishop made a centennial offering to 
the Society of $30,000, besides large gifts to the Freedmen's fund. Once the Doctor 
said to Dr. Simmons : ' I have been blamed for giving so many thousand dollars for 
the benefit of colored men. But I expect to stand side by side with these men in the 
day of judgment. Their Lord is my Lord. They and I are brethren, and I am deter- 
mined to be prepared for that meeting.' No man ever known to the writer was more 
completely devoted, body, soul and spirit, in labor for man and love for God than 
Dr. Bishop. He had as robust a body, as broad a mind and as warm a heart as ever 
fall to the lot of Christian humanity; and not a jot or tittle of either did he with- 
hold from this holy service. Yet, when told that death was near and that he would 
soon be free from extreme pain and enter into rest, his only reply was the expression 
of a grateful soul that he should soon begin a life of activity. 




NATHAN BISHOP, LL.D. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

PREACHERS— EDUCATORS— AUTHORS. 

IN the absence of the connectional principle in the life of Baptist Churches, 
their history and united efforts are at times largely included in the biography 
of particular individuals, who have left the impress of their minds and hearts upon 
their own times and on succeeding generations. Of none is this more true than of 

several individuals who have had 
much to do with those great 
movements that must now be 
mentioned. Few of our Amer- 
ican fathers acted a more prom- 
inent part in the work of mis- 
sions, whether on the home or 
foreign field, than the immortal 
Thomas Baldwin ; and having 
| . already spoken of him at some 
length, it will be but needful 
here to glance at his Boston min- 
|||||||||g||jp istry and genera] character. 

After serving the Church at 
Canaan, 1ST. H., for seven years, 
he became the pastor of the Sec- 
ond Baptist Church, in Boston, 
in 1790, which responsible office 
he filled till his death, in 1825. 
thomas Baldwin, d.d. His labors were most abundant, 

and his success in the conversion of men to Christ was very great. He was not 
a graduate of any college, but he fostered all educational projects ; nor did he love 
controversy, but when lie found it necessary to defend Baptist principles against 
the pen of the celebrated Dr. Worcester he did so with faithful vigor. Dr. Still- 
man and himself were fast friends and true yoke-fellows in every good work. As 
politicians, Stillman was a firm Federalist, and Baldwin as firm a Jeffersonian Dem- 
ocrat, and generally on Fast Day and Thanksgiving-day they preached on the points 
in dispute here, because, as patriots, they held them essential to the well-being of 
the Republic, especially, in the exciting conflicts of 1800-01 ; yet, there never was 




DR. STEPHEN GANO. 473 

a moment of ill-feeling between them. On these days, the Federalists of both their 
congregations went to hear Dr. Stillman and the Democrats went to Baldwin's place, 
but on other days they remained at home, like Christian gentlemen, and honored 
their pastors as men of that stamp. Dr. Baldwin filled many important stations with 
the greatest modesty and meekness, for with a powerful intellect he possessed his 
temper in unruffled serenity ; all men seemed to honor him, as his spirit was the 
breath of love. Few painters could have thrown that peculiar charm into his coun- 
tenance which is seen at a look, had it not first been in his character. The soul of 
patience, he was inspired with a stern love of justice, and commanded a large fund 
of playful humor and innocent wit. His manners were unaffected, simple and digni- 
fied, so that in him heart-kindness and rectitude blended in a rare degree, and his 
counsel carried weight by its vigorous discrimination. The Massachusetts Mis- 
sionary Society, and after it the Missionary Union, were great debtors to his zeal 
and wisdom. As an independent thinker, without petty ends to gain or fitful gusts 
of passion to indulge, all trusted him safely. 

Before he entered the ministry he served the State of New Hampshire as a 
legislator in its General Court ; and after his removal to Boston he was frequently 
elected chaplain to the General Court of Massachusetts. He also served as a mem- 
ber of the Constitutional Convention of Massachusetts, in 1821, and took an active 
part in its discussions. For many years he was a Trustee and Fellow of Brown 
University, a Trustee of Waterville College from its organization, also of Colum- 
bian College. His first work as an author was ' Open Communion Examined,' pub-> 
lished in 1789, at the request of the Woodstock (Yt. ) Association. His second 
was a volume of about 250 pages, in reply to Dr. Samuel Worcester's attack on the 
Baptists. This work amply vindicated the sentiments of the Baptists, and did much 
at the time, by its vigor of intellect, its strength of logic and its Christ-like spirit, 
to arrest the unwelcome treatment which they met at the hands of their assailants. 
Dr. Baldwin was born at Bozrah, Conn., December 23d, 1753, and died at Water- 
ville, Me., August 29th, 1825, having gone there to attend the commencement of 
the college. 

Rev. Stephen Gano, M.D., was another master in Israel, who had much to 
do with the shaping of his own times. He was born in New York, December 
25th, 1762. In consequence of the disturbances of the Revolutionary War he was 
not able to attend the Rhode Island College, then under the care of his uncle, Dr. 
Manning, but he was put under the care of Dr. Stiles, of New Jersey, another 
uncle, to study medicine. At the age of nineteen he entered the army as a surgeon, 
where he remained for two years, and then settled at Tappan, N. Y. He says that 
when he left his mother for the army she buckled on his regimentals, which her 
own hands had made, saying: ' My son, may God preserve your life and patriotism. 
The one may fall a sacrifice in retaking and preserving the home of your childhood 
(New York was then in the hands of the British), but never let me hear that you 



474 



HIS SERVICE IN THE NAVY. 



have forfeited the birthright of a freeman.' His father had already gone to the 
war, and Stephen adds : ' Without a tear she saw me depart, bidding me trust in 
God and be valiant.' The next morning his regiment marched to Danbury, where 
lie witnessed the burning of that town. He speaks of his after marches in the 
army, under Col. Lamb, as traced in their blood on the snow, and of shoes being 
sent to them which Gen. Lafayette had provided in France. After this, he served 
as surgeon in the new brig commanded by Decatur, of whom he says, ' a braver man 
never trod the deck of any vessel.' She was captured, for she ran on a reef 

of rocks, when : ' Finding escape 
impossible, we managed to cut 
away her leaders and nailed her 
flag to the mast, and long after 
we were captured our stars and 
stripes floated over her deck.' 
After their capture, Gano and 
thirty-four others were left upon 
Turk's Island without food, to 
perish. There he was taken so 
sick that he appeared to be dying. 
His companions, however, found 
some conchs on the shore and 
roasted them. They raised his 
fainting head from the sand- 
beach, and gave him a portion of 
the liquor, saying : ' Gano, take 
this and live, we will yet beat 
the British.' He revived, and 
after some days was taken to St. 
Francis. Upon landing there, he 
begged from door to door for a 
morsel of bread, till a woman gave him half a loaf, which he shared with his com- 
panions. After working hard to load a vessel with salt, he obtained passage on a 
brig for Philadelphia, but when four days out was re-captured and taken into New 
Providence. Here he was put on board a prison- ship, fastened in chains, and nearly 
died of hunger. After a time he was exchanged as a prisoner, but safely reached 
Philadelphia, and soon entered on the practice of medicine at Tappan, N". Y. 

There he was converted and in 1786 was set apart to the Gospel ministry. In 
the sketch of himself which he wrote for his children he speaks of his early 
abhorrence of intoxicating drinks thus: 'When four years old, milk-punch wes 
recommended in the small-pox, which I had most severely. My mother has informed 
me that, when she urged my taking it lest I should die, I replied to her, " Then I 




REV. STEPHEN GAXO. 



HIS CONVERSION AND ORDINATION. 475 

will die." ' This repugnance lie carried through life. He also speaks of visiting his 
grandmother when he was thirteen and she was more than fourscore years of age. 
' On first seeing me she bade me kneel beside -her, and gently placing her aged hand 
on my youthful head she offered up a fervent petition for my salvation, when, after 
a short silence of prayerful abstraction, she said : " Stephen, the Lord designs thee 
for a minister of the everlasting Gospel. ' Be thou faithful unto death and I will 
give thee a crown of life.' ' : He also tells us that, while under conviction for sin, 
an elderly lady, a neighbor and intimate friend of his wife, seeing his distress of 
mind, thought that she would show him the way of salvation. She confessed, how- 
ever, that she had been seeking her own salvation for forty years but had not then 
been saved. They bowed before the Lord together in prayer and agreed to pray 
for each other. A few days passed, and one night he found himself so happy in 
Christ that he could not wait for the dawn of day, but urged his horse at full speed to 
the house of his aged friend, to tell her what the Lord had done for his soul. He 
rapped at the door and she, raising an upper window, asked : ' Doctor, is your wife 
ill?' 'O no, he cried, 'I have found Jesus precious and have come to tell you.' 
She replied : ' I was only waiting for daylight to come and tell you that I am rejoic- 
ing in him, with joy unspeakable and full of glory.' That day he wrote the joyful 
news to his parents, saying : ' Tell it upon the house-tops that Stephen is among 
the redeemed.' His father, John Gano, replied : ; As I never expect to be nearer 
the house-top, in a suitable situation to make known the joyful news of my dear 
son's conversion, than the pulpit, I read his letter from thence on the last Sabbath.' 
Stephen's daughter says that after her father's death she was mentioning this letter 
to an aged minister, who said : ' When I was a thoughtless lad of sixteen I went to 
hear your grandfather preach and was present at the very time when your fathers 
letter was read, and that, with the accompanying remarks, was one of the means of 
my conversion and had its weight in leading me into the ministry.' The ordination 
of Stephen, in his father's church, at the age of twenty -three, put great honor upon 
the faith both of his mother and grandmother. "When he was left on Turk's Island, 
news reached his mother that he was dead. This she did not believe, but said : 
'When I gave my son to my country I gave him to God. After his departure, I 
felt an assurance that God had accepted the gift for his own service. I believe that 
he will yet be an able, faithful, successful, and, it may be, deeply-tried minister of 
the Gospel of Christ.' 

Her faith was prophetic. In 1792 he became pastor of the First Baptist 
Church at Providence, where he continued until his death, in 1828, having filled its 
pastorate for thirty-six years. His ministry was remarkably successful. When he 
became pastor his Church numbered but 165 members, but five new Churches 
sprang up, mostly from his own, and when he died the ancient Church itself num- 
bered above 600 members. He stood pre-eminent amongst his brethren as a public 
speaker and a leader in all denominational affairs. His executive ability was large, 



476 



REV. ALFRED BENNETT. 



his punctuality in dispatching business and his large forecast gave him great influ- 
ence in all Baptist councils. For nineteen years in succession he acted as Moderator 
in the Warren Association. He constantly preached with an eye to the copious out- 
pourings of the Holy Spirit, and he enjoyed many revivals of religion in his 
Church. With some hundreds of others, he baptized his six daughters, four of 
whom became the wives of Baptist ministers, amongst whom were the late Drs. 
Henry Jackson and David Benedict, the historian. Few men have left a more 
hallowed influence on the Baptists of America than Stephen Gano. His doctrines 

were of the purely orthodox pat- 



tern, especially in all that related to 
the person and work of Christ. At 
the close of a sermon on his Deity 
he says : ' The sentiment I have 
been presenting to you, and which 
I have feebly supported in this 
place and from this pulpit for more 
than thirty-five years, is now the 
jj| only ground of my hope, and that 
which I wish to commend when the 
messenger of death shall summon 
my soul to an account before the 
only wise God and Saviour.' 

Bev. Alfred Bennett was 
born at Mansfield, Conn., in 1780, 
and lived to be honored for years 
and influence, being long known as 
' Father Bennett.' ' He was a con- 
temporary of Baldwin and Gano, and labored side by side with them for many 
years in promoting foreign missions. He was licensed to preach in 1806, by the 
Church at Homer, JST. Y., and became its pastor in 1807. His early ministry there 
was so blessed of God that his Church sent out two new Churches in the vicinity, 
and great revivals followed his labors. Like most of the pastors of his day, he 
preached much abroad, especially in the region which now forms the central coun- 
ties of New York, and he left a holy influence wherever he went. From 1832 to 
the close of his life, in 1851, he devoted his time to pleading the cause of foreign 
missions, and was one of the chief instruments in establishing that love of missionary 
enterprise which characterizes the Baptists of the State of New York. More than 
a generation has passed since he departed this life, yet his name is always pronounced 
with reverence. In person he was tall, of a dark complexion, thin and stooping. 
He had a fine head, with strong features, a winning address and an earnest spirit. 
He was attended by an atmosphere of firm devotion and close walk with God. 




^M 



REV. ALFRED BENNETT. 



REV. DR. SHARP. 



477 



Kev. Daniel Shakp, D.D., was a native of Huddersfield, Yorkshire ; born 
December 25th, 1783. His father was the pastor of a Baptist Church at Farsley, 
near Leeds. Early in life Daniel became a Christian, united with a Congregational 
Church, and was greatly prospered in secular business. He came to the United 
States in 1806, when he began to examine the difference between himself and the 
Baptists, and, as the result, united with the Fayette Street Church, New York, of 
which he soon became a very useful member. Then he believed himself called of God 
to the Christian ministry, and preached his first sermon in the outskirts of the city. 
In March, 1807, he began a course of 



theological studies with Dr. Staughton, 
of Philadelphia, and was ordained pastor 
of the First Church at Newark, N. J., in 
1809, where he remained until 1812, 
when he became pastor of the Charles 
Street Church, Boston, Mass. Here his 
large capacities for usefulness developed 
in every sphere, especially in preaching 
the Gospel and in laying broad founda- 
tions for foreign mission work and the 
education of the ministry. "When Bap- 
tist educational movements led to the 
formation of the Newton Institution, he 
was one of its foremost advocates, and for 
eighteen years presided over its Board of 
Trustees. He also became a Fellow in the 
Corporation of Brown University, and 
one of the Board of Overseers in Harvard. In Boston his public influence was gen- 
eral and healthful, for his talents, with the purity and beneficence of his life, com- 
mended him to all. His personal presence bespoke the man of mark wherever he 
went. The cast of his face was noble, albeit the compression of his mouth and the 
glint of his eye indicated sternness of character and the power to slant a satire ; indeed, 
his whole carriage said : ' I magnify mine office.' Yet, where his suspicion was not 
excited or his confidence challenged, he was as winsome as a child, and trusted men 
implicitly ; but ever insisted in return on transparent simplicity and staunch honor in 
all their conduct. His conservatism always demanded the unity and peace of consist- 
ent integrity. In a sermon to his own people he says : ' One Diotrephes may de- 
stroy the peace of a Church. It is a melancholy fact that some men must be first or 
they will do nothing. They will rule or rage ; and the misfortune is, they rage if 
they rule. May God preserve me from such good men.' Dr. Sharp was tall 
in stature and very erect, elegant, benignant and courtly in his manners, and his 
eloquent ministry held the respect of the whole community in Boston for one-and- 




REV. DANIEL SHARP, D.D. 



478 



REV. DR. SMITH. 



forty years. He was emphatically a teacher and a father in Israel ; at the same 
time, in all spheres of refined society, he was a rare specimen of the fine old En- 
glish gentleman. He died in 
1853. 

Samuel F. Smith, D.D. 
Few men are now living 
who have more beautifully 
adorned our ministry, or more 
earnestly aided our missions, 
than the modest and widely- 
known author of our national 
hymn, •' My Country ! 'tis of 
Thee.' Dr. Smith was born 
in Boston, Mass., October 
21st, 1808. He was fitted for 
college in the Latin School 
of that city, and was a Frank- 
lin Medal scholar. He grad- 
uated at Harvard in 1829, in 
the class with Oliver Wen- 
dell Holmes, Judge B. R. 
Curtis, Judge Bigelow, James 
Freeman Clarke, Professor 
In Dr. Holmes's poem on ' The 




REV. SAMUEL P. SMITH, D.D. 



Benjamin Peirce and other men of distinction. 
Boys ' he sings of him thus : 

' And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith ; 
Fate tried to conceal him by calling him Smith ; 
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free — 
Just read on his medal, " My country, of thee ! " ' 

He was a student in the Andover Theological Institute from 1829 to 18<52, 
when he became the editor of the ' Baptist Missionary Magazine ' for one year. In 
February, 1831, he was ordained pastor of the Baptist Church at Waterville, Maine, 
and was Professor of Modern Languages in the College there for eight years. 
From 1812 to 1854, twelve years and a half, he was pastor of the First Baptist 
Church at Newton, Mass. Then, for seven years, 1842 to 1849, he was editor of 
the ' Christian Review,' and for fifteen years editor and translator of the ' Missionary 
Union.' His soul-stirring national hymn, known to every statesman and school- 
child in the republic, was written at Andover, in 1832, and also his great missionary 
hymn, ' The Morning Light is Breaking.' He translated an entire volume of 
Brockhaus's ' Conversations Lexicon ' from the German, which was incorporated into 
the ' Cyclopsedia Americana,' and, in association with the late Lowell Mason, wrote or 



DR. WILLIAM R. WILLIAMS. 



479 



translated from German music-books nearly every song in the ' Juvenile Lyre,' the 
first book of music and songs for children published in the United States. He has 
rendered great service to Churches and Sunday-schools as the compiler of ' Lyric 
Gems ' and ' Rock of Ages,' as the editor of four volumes of juvenile literature, 
and also as the principal compiler of the ' Psalmist,' a hymn-book which the greater 
part of the Baptist denomination used for thirty years, and which contained about 
thirty of his own hymns. His busy pen also produced the ' Life of Rev. Joseph 
Grafton,' ' Missionary Sketches,' ' Rambles in Mission Fields,' the ' History of 
Newton, Mass.,' with endless contributions to periodical and review literature. Dr. 
Smith visited Europe in 1875-76, and again in 1880-82, extending his jour- 
ney to Asia and visiting the Baptist missions in Burma, India and Ceylon, as well 
as the European missions in France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Turkey, 
Greece, Italy and Spain. He 
married the granddaughter of Dr. 
Hezekiah Smith, of great renown 
in Baptist life, and his son, Rev. 
Dr. D. A. W. Smith, has been a 
missionary in Burma since 1863, 
and is now President of the Karen 
Theological Seminary at Rangoon. 
No man amongst Baptists is bet- 
ter known or more beloved for his 
learning, usefulness and Christ- 
like spirit, his brethren generally 
appreciating him as in regular lineal 
descent from Nathaniel, ' an Israel- 
ite indeed, in whom is no guile.' 

Rev. William R. Williams, 
D.D.,LL.D., was of general and 
denominational celebrity. He 
was born in New York, October 14th, 1804, and was the son of Rev. John Will- 
iams, at that time pastor of the Oliver Street Baptist Church. He entered 
Columbia College at the age of fourteen, and graduated in 1822, after which 
he studied law with Peter A. Jay, nephew of the former Chief Justice of the 
United States and one of the most eminent lawyers of his day. Mr. Williams was 
admitted to the bar in 1826 and became Mr. Jay's partner in business. His father 
died in 1825 and his mother in 1826. He so took to heart this double affliction 
that his sorrow impaired his health, and he spent the year 1827 in Europe. After 
his return he practiced law alone for a time ; then conviction of duty led him into 
the Christian ministry, and in June, 1832, he commenced preaching in the Broad- 
way Hall, to the congregation afterwards known as the Amity Street Church. This 
33 




■WILLIAM R. "WILLIAMS, D.D.. LL.D. 



480 THE PREACHER AND AUTHOR. 

body came from the Oliver Street Church, and was constituted with 43 members 
December 17th, 1832. Dr. Francis Way land preached his ordination sermon in the 
Oliver Street Meeting-house, Dr. Cone being then pastor of that Church. The old 
Church lovingly provided its former pastor's son with lots for a new Church edifice 
in Amity Street, which building was completed in the following year. At that 
time Mr. Williams's health was firm, his voice full and sound, and the house was 
constantly crowded by a refined congregation. His discourses abounded in vast 
wealth of thought, deep spirituality and rare literary beauty. After a few years his 
voice failed, and in consequence of its feebleness it was difficult to hear him, so that 
while his congregation retained its high character for intelligence it became small. 
Yet Dr. Williams reached that super-eminent distinction as a preacher which never 
decreased, but rather increased to the close of his life. His ideal standard of literary 
excellence was so high that he looked upon the best of his own productions with 
suspicion, and most reluctantly put them to the press. 

Probably the first manuscript which he consented to print was a brief memoir 
of his father, written in 1825, and published anonymously in an Appendix to the 
Memoir of Dr. Stanford, by Dr. Sommers, in 1835. It covers but 23 pages, and is 
one of the simplest, sweetest and most perfect pieces of biography to be met with. 
Its style differs entirely from that of the doctor's later years, is less ornate and most 
sweetly tender, the tribute of a loving son to the memory of his loving father. It is 
as direct as a sunbeam, and does not contain a sentence to recall the movement of 
Addison or Steele, much less that of Foster or Hall. Neither the head nor heart of 
that man is to be envied who can, unmoved, read this lucid story of his holy father 
written with tears in every line. Dr. Williams's resources in literature, philosophy, 
history and theology appeared to be unlimited, and his memory was so capacious 
and exact that the researches of an industrious life came at command. Many 
thought, after the failure of his voice, that his great moulding influence on the 
young could best be felt in the chair of a College or Theological Seminary, and high 
positions of this order were frequently tendered to him ; but he was never willing 
to leave his pastorate, and died as pastor of the Church of which he was ordained, 
having filled his office for more than 51 years. He was a close student, and his 
mental powers grew to 'Jie close of life. His library was selected with the greatest 
care, numbering about 20,000 volumes. His pen was never at rest. The notes 
which he made on his reading alone numbered eight volumes. His first known publi- 
cation was an address delivered at Madison University, in 1843, on the ' Conservative 
Principle in our Literature.' It excited universal attention by its affluence of 
thought and expresssion, and was republished, in England. This was followed by 
his ' Miscellanies,' in 1850, and in 1851 by two volumes, his ' Eeligious Progress ' 
and his 'Lectures on the Lord's Prayer.' At a later date he published 'God's 
Rescues,' an exposition of Luke xv. ; his ' Lectures on Baptist History,' in 1876 ; 
and his last work, ' Eras and Characters in History.' His scattered discourses, 



A CASTLE IN TEE AIR. 481 

introductions to the publications of others, his contributions to reviews, and other 
articles, are very numerous ; besides, he has left a large number of manuscripts, 
amongst them several courses of lectures, ready for publication. All his writings 
are so thoroughly marked by a glowing diction and a profundity of thought that his 
image is left on every page. At times a play of humor or a stroke of sarcasm is 
indulged, indicating great power of invective had he chosen to use it freely ; but, best 
of all, he breathes that atmosphere of holiness which only comes of a close walk 
with God. Dr. "Williams died in great peace in the bosom of his family April 1st, 
1885, leaving a widow, the daughter of the late John Bowen, and two sons ; all of 
whom are specially devoted to Christian toil in the Amity Street Church, to whose 
interests their father and husband gave his singularly valuable and honored life. 

When our Churches were first awakened to the missionary appeal, Luther Rice, 
Dr. Staughton and others took it into their heads that the Triennial Convention 
could unite a great institution of learning at Washington with Foreign Mission 
work, and so high education could go hand in hand with high evangelization. 
Hence, in May, 1817, the Convention resolved ' to institute a classical and theolog- 
ical seminary,' to train young men for the ministry. The first idea of Luther Rice 
was, that as the Burman missionaries must translate the Scriptures from the origi- 
nals such an institution would give them the necessary training. Dr. Judson was a 
graduate of Brown University, and with Mr. Rice, had received his theological 
education at Andover, under the tuition of Moses Stuart. But soon the purpose en- 
larged its proportions under the enthusiasm of the measure, in the hands of its 
friends. They did not foresee that this enterprise must necessarily divert the body 
from the intention of its founders. Yet for a time great interest was elicited 
throughout the Middle and Southern States in this two-fold object, until it was dis- 
covered that the cause of education threatened to undermine interest in missions. 
The scheme was to obtain a charter which should provide that the President of the 
United States, or the heads of Departments, nominate a College Board for election 
by the Convention, and in due time the college would become such a grand concern 
as to bring much money into the treasury for various other missionary uses, while 
the Churches would support the missionaries. These fathers had not the remotest 
idea of uniting Caesar and Christ in the work of missions, but the scheme was 
looked upon as specially happy, for utilizing the influence of Cassar in the cause 
of Christ withont being dictated to by him. This notion floated up and down our 
ranks from 1817 to 1824, and the vision of abundant young Baptist ministers and mis- 
sionaries filled many eyes. They were to become students at Washington, to study 
oratory at the feet of the great Senators of those days, and many predicted that, 
as pulpit orators, they would eclipse the orators of Greece and Rome, and a new 
race of Baptist Ciceroes and Demostheneses were to arise who should do wonders. 

The Seminary was formally opened in 1818, in Philadelphia, under the charge 
of Dr. "William Staughton and Professor Ira Chase. At first the number of students 



482 'THE BASELESS FABRIC OF A VISION.' 

was two, but it soon increased to twenty, and in April, 1821, the first class, number- 
ing five, was graduated. The same year the institution was removed to Washington, 
where it became the theological department of the Columbian University, which 
had received a charter from Congress in 1821. As some leading minds in the coun- 
try hoped that the college would become a great National Baptist University, 
Luther Rice as zealously solicited funds on its behalf as for the support of mission- 
aries in Burma. Dr. Staughton, the very soul of eloquence, left his pastorate in 
Philadelphia to take the presidency, other names as immortal were to sustain him 
as professors, and Professor Knowles became the editor of the Columbian Star, with 
the promise of making it the great Baptist paper of the Continent. 

Of course, the whole expectation proved futile. It became evident, at the 
meeting of the Convention in 1820, that it had undertaken too much, and that the 
educational interest had detracted from the interest in the missionary cause. In the 
spring of 1826 the Triennial Convention met with the Oliver Street Church, in 
New York, and took the entire situation into grave consideration. A host of mas- 
ters in Israel were present : Cone and Kendrick, Malcom and Maclay, Knowles and 
Galusha, Semple and Ryland, Staughton and Stow, Choules and Mercer, Rice and 
Jeter, Wayland and Sommers, with many more. But strong lines of partisanship 
began to be drawn, and they were divided about the college. There were several 
vacancies in the Board of Trustees which the President of the United States, John 
Quincy Adams, had failed to fill by nominations, and so the hands of the Conven- 
tion were tied as to the election of trustees. In this strait, Rev. Gustavus F. Davis, 
of Hartford, Conn., a vigorous young man of about thirty, who could travel day and 
night by stage, was sent off at full speed to Washington to get the President's nomi- 
nations. The Convention plunged into discussion, and Mr. Rice was charged with 
bad management of the whole affair. The leading men of the denomination were 
drawn into the controversy on one side or the other. Luther Rice was as honest as 
the daylight, but he knew nothing of book-keeping, so that the missionary and col- 
lege accounts were mixed up in a perfect jumble. He was the most disinterested of 
men, had scarcely allowed himself enough for his daily bread, but no straightforward 
accounting could be had ; nor did it enter the minds of the Convention generally 
that the whole proceeding was an effort at concentration which was very questiona- 
ble for Baptists to attempt, looked at from any practical point whatever. 

Professor Knowles was one of the clearest-headed and most far-sighted men in 
that Convention, and soon saw that something was radically askew. Others came to 
his help, in the hope that this confused state of affairs might be straightened ; but 
little could be done. At last, Mr. Rice also saw that, with all his self-sacrifice, he had 
made serious blunders of judgment, and with an assertion of honesty of purpose, 
which every one believed, he threw himself and all his golden visions upon the tender 
mercies of his brethren. After several had taken part in the debate, which lasted 
for a long time, Rev. Francis Wayland, then about thirty years of age, and a pro- 



AN APOSTLE OF COMMON SENSE. 483 

fessor in Union College, took the floor. One who was present describes him then as 
of a ' large, bony frame, which had not acquired the breadth of muscle of after 
life, giving him a gaunt, stooping appearance. He was of a dark complexion, black 
eyes, with a sharp, steady radiance which darted from under the jutting cliffs of 
eyebrows that protruded a little beyond the facial line. He had a Websterian 
structure, was majestic rather than elegant, being strong in person and in will, and 
conscientious. His voice was not smoothly sonorous nor sustained in its volume of 
sound, but falling at times very low, with an occasional hesitancy of speech.' He 
accorded the highest honor to all concerned in the complicated affairs of the college 
and of the mission, and admitted that they had been indefatigable in their labors of 
love. But he exploded the idea that two such institutions could co-exist under one 
management, any more than that two ships could be managed by one crew when 
chained together in a tempestuous sea ; one going down must take the other with it 
to the bottom. He showed that education in America and missions in Burma were 
so different in their nature that they must be treated separately ; for, instead of the 
one helping the other, they were mutual hinderances, and he demanded that the 
union between the two be forever dissolved. His speech was so lucid and convinc- 
ing that the dream vanished and the Convention ended the complication at once, 
with all its outcoming perplexities. 

In 1827 the Faculty resigned, and for a time instruction was suspended. In 
after years, however, the institution received the benefactions of distinguished men. 
Mr. Adams was one of its firm friends, and as a college standing upon its own merits 
it maintained an existence against great difficulties. The gifts of Hon. W. W. Cor- 
coran, of Washington, were munificent, beginning as early as 1864; but it was 
not until 1873, under the presidency of Dr. Wellings, that Columbia College 
received the pledge of Mr. Corcoran, that if its friends would secure $100,000 for 
its endowment he would contribute §200,000 more for the same object. This 
condition was met, and now, in point of endowment, its existence is permanently 
assured. At this time Mr. Corcoran's donations have amounted to 8300,000, and 
although this philanthropist is an Episcopalian he made them with great heartiness, 
saying : ' I know that I am giving to Baptists, but I have confidence in them.' His 
beloved sister was the wife of Dr. S. P. Hill, pastor of the First Baptist Church, 
Baltimore, so that he well understood their sentiments and appreciated their work. 

Much has already been said of the establishment of Brown, Madison and other 
universities, and it would be especially interesting to trace the rise and progress of 
each Baptist College in America, but space will not permit. It is, however, most 
highly promising for the cause of Baptist education in the United States that at 
present we have 19 institutions for the colored and Indian races, 14 seminaries and 
high-schools for the co-education of male and female, 27 institutions for female educa- 
tion exclusively, and 6 theological seminaries for the education of our ministry, 
making in all, weak and strong, old and new, an aggregate of 125 institutions. In 



484 EARLY EDUCATIONAL MEASURES. 

these the present statistics show, of male instructors, 556 ; of female instructors, 
440 ; of pupils, 16,426; of students for the ministry, 1,503; the moneyed value of 
libraries and apparatus, $777,911 ; the value of grounds and buildings, $7,713,71 > > ; 
the amount of endowments, $7,236,270 ; the total income, $1,165,786 ; the amount 
of gifts to all in 1885, $330,303, and the number of books in their libraries, 412,120. 

Dr. Sprague, in the historical introduction to the ' Annals of the American 
Baptist Pulpit,' states that ' the Baptists as a denomination have always attached 
little importance to human learning as a qualification for the ministry, in comparison 
with higher, though not miraculous, spiritual gifts, which they believe it the 
province of the Holy Spirit to impart ; and some of them, it must be acknowledged, 
have gone to the extreme of looking upon high intellectual culture in a minister as 
rather a hinderance than a help to the success of his labors. But, if I mistake not, 
many of the sketches in this column will show that the Baptists have had less credit 
as the friends and patrons of learning than they have deserved.' All true Baptists 
are grateful to say that there has been a great change for the better since Dr. 
Sprague penned these words, and its stimulant has been drawn largely from the 
example of the olden times, as well as from the necessities of later days. It should 
not be forgotten that it was Thomas Hollis, a Baptist of London, in 1719, who 
founded two professorships and ten scholarships for ' poor students,' in Harvard 
College. The Philadelphia Association, in 1722, proposed that the Churches make 
inquiry for young men ' hopeful for the ministry and inclinable to learning,' and 
notified Abel Morgan thereof, that he might recommend them to Mr. Hollis for these 
scholarships. A Baptist Education Society was formed at Charleston, S. C, in 1775, 
by Rev. Oliver Hart, and in 1789 the Philadelphia Association gathered a fund ' for 
the education of young men preparing for the Gospel ministry ; ' the Warren Asso- 
ciation did the same in 1793. The American Baptists had three classical schools in 
1775, that at Hopewell, N. T.; that at Wrentham, Mass.; and that at Bordentown, 
K. J. It was customary at that time for older pastors to instruct students for the 
ministry, especially in doctrinal and homiletic studies. For example, Dr. Sharp 
spent considerable time in study with Dr. Staughton ; Dr. Bolles studied three 
years with Dr. Stillman, ' uniting study with observation and labors in the social 
meetings.' The nucleus of Waterville College was formed in the students whom 
Dr. Chaplin took with him there from Danvers, where they had studied with him. 

The efforts that were made in Rhode Island and New York in behalf of gen- 
eral and theological education have already been traced. "When the War of Inde- 
pendence closed, Rhode Island College had existed twelve years, and had graduated 
seven classes. Small sums had been contributed for its support, by numerous 
friends in England and America ; but, in 1804, Nicholas Brown gave $5,000 to 
establish a professorship of oratory and belles-lettres, and, in recognition of his 
timely gift, its name was changed to Brown University. He died in 1841, at which 
time he had given about $160,000 to the institution. Its line of presidents and 



FRANCIS WAYLAND. 483 

instructors has formed for it an illustrious history. Manning, Maxcy, Messer, 
Wayland, Sears, Caswell and Robinson, have honored its presidency and made its in- 
fluence world-wide. Francis "Wayland, D.D., LL.D., one of the great educators of 
our country, has left a name and influence which must ever stimulate the American 
student, and call forth the thanksgiving of the denomination to which he was united. 
Judge Durfee pronounces him : 'A mind of extraordinary calibre, foremost in every 
good cause, educational, industrial, philanthropical or reformatory, and prompt to 
answer every call upon him for counsel or instruction in every crisis or exigency.' 

Francis "Wayland was born in New York, March 11, 1796, and was the son of 
Francis Wayland, a Baptist minister, who preached in several cities on the Hudson 
and became pastor of the Church at Saratoga Springs in 1819. His son graduated 
at Union College at the age of seventeen, and commenced the study of medicine, 
but before his medical studies were completed he believed that the Spirit of God 
had called him to the Gospel ministry, and entered Andover Theological Seminary 
in 1816. At the end of a year, however, he became a tutor in Union College, 
where he remained for four years, when, in 1821, he was called to the pastorate of 
the First Church in Boston. Here he became known as a man of clear and positive 
convictions and great moral force. A sermon preached in 1823, on the Moral 
Dignity of the Missionary Enterprise, and another in 1825, on the Duties of an 
American Citizen, attracted almost universal attention from the weight of their 
thought and the charms of their expression. He returned to Union College in 
1826, as professor; but in 1827 accepted the presidency of Brown University. At 
that time Brown was not in a vei\y flourishing condition, either in its finances or 
reputation for discipline, but Dr. "Wayland soon restored it to a better state, raised 
its instruction to a new and higher level, and by his stimulating and suggestive 
methods sought to make it fulfill the ends of a University abreast of any institu- 
tion in the land. To him is due the inception of the idea that a liberal education 
should include more than drill in the classics and in mathematics, as modern life 
demanded more of the liberally educated man than an entry into the learned pro- 
fessions through the traditional curriculum. He thought a system of elective studies 
necessary, in which the tastes of the student should be consulted while intellectual 
discipline should be secured, and that the true conception of an American Univer- 
sity demanded this. These views were slowly matured, for they were not fully 
elaborated and wrought into the life of the College until 1850. But the standard 
of scholarship was slowly raised, the endowment was increased, and he sent forth 
men with what was better even than scholarship — with the high character that can 
best be imparted by personal contact with a morally strong, resolute and sympa- 
thetic Christian manhood. Dr. "Wayland's influence on his students was so familiar, 
dignified and paternal, and withal so thoroughly Christ-like, that he left his imprint 
upon each mind, and, whether they became Christians or not while passing through 
their college course, each one honored the president as a noble specimen of Christ's 



486 



DR. GUILD. 



best disciples, and was convinced that his heart's wish was that all of them might 
even be better Christians than he esteemed himself to be. 

Dr. Wayland, with all his solidity, was of a very mirthful character, and con- 
stantly kept his class-room and social surroundings alive with strokes of wit. But 
his greatest characteristic .was his deep and glowing spirituality. Dr. Stockbridge, 
who supplied the pulpit of the First Church at Providence while Dr. Wayland's 
pastor was abroad, says of him that one day a leading Deacon in the city noticed 
an aged man bowed down in a place of worship and Dr. Wayland leaning over him 

in close conversation. He drew 
near, and found the venerable 
Judge P. overwhelmed with sor- 
row for sin. He was expressing 
his fear that, as one who had lived 
so many scores of years without 
God in the world, there was no 
hope in his case. The Doctor was 
tenderly pointing him to the 
boundless mercy of God in Christ 
Jesus, and the eminent jurist 
found peace in believing on him. 
In 1852 Dr. Wayland said to Dr. 
Stockbridge : ' If you can secure 
the presence of the Holy Spirit in 
your ministrations, a battalion of 
soldiers would not be able to keep 
the people from crowding the 
sanctuary.' This great educator 
died Sept. 30th, 1865, but is still 
preaching by his books in all parts 
of .the civilized world. His published writings of note number seventy-two, the 
most prominent of which are his ' Moral Science, ' Political Economy,' ' Intellectual 
Philosophy,' ' University Sermons,' ' Memoir of Dr. Judson,' ' Limitations to Human 
Responsibility,' and ' Principles and Practices of the Baptist Churches.' 

Reuben A. Guild, LL.D., the present Librarian of Brown, has been longer 
associated with the University than any person now filling an important position in 
its service, for his labor runs through the terms of its last three presidents and 
well back into that of Dr. Wayland's, he having filled his office for thirty-eight years. 
Dr. Guild was born at West Dedham, Mass.. in 1822. From a child he evinced 
strong literary tastes, and prepared for college at Day's Academy, Wrentham, and at 
the Worcester High School, entering Brown University in 1843. He was a dili- 
gent and faithful student, and graduated in 1847 with the sixth honors of his 




REUBEN A. GUILD, LL.D. 



HIS VALUABLE SERVICE. 487 

class. In 1848 he succeeded Professor Jewett as Librarian, and has filled the posi- 
tion with marked success down to this time. Under ' his administration the library 
has increased from 17,000 to 63,000 bound volumes, and 20,000 unbound pam- 
phlets ; which collection is kept in a substantial and elegant fire-proof building ; con- 
structed after his own plan. No man is fit for a Librarian who will not take 
off his hat in the presence of a good book. Dr. Guild possesses this ability, to- 
together with his other great qualifications. The day after this new building was 
finished he began to remove the books into it from Manning Hall. Dr. Guild 
devoutly uncovered his head, took a splendid copy of Bagster's ' Polyglot Bible,' and 
accompanied by his corps of assistants, led by the late Rev. Prof. J. L. Diman, 
carried it alone and placed it as No. 1, in alcove 1, on shelf 1, pronouncing it : " The 
Book of books, the embodiment of all true wisdom, the fountain-head of real cult- 
ure, the corner-stone of a true library, the source of all true civilization and moral 
improvement.' There it stands to-day, the ripe sheaf of Jehovah, and all the other 
books must do it reverence if they wish the good-will of the Librarian. The 
library is a model in its arrangement and management, brought as nearly to perfec- 
tion as such a collection of books can be. Dr. Guild is one of the best Baptist 
writers of the times; he is clear, terse, accurate. In 1858 he published the 'Libra- 
rian's Manual ' and the ' Life of President Manning,' in 1864 the ' History of Brown 
University,' in 1867 the ' Life of Roger Williams,' and in 1885 the ' Life of Hezekiah 
Smith, D.D.,' and he has edited a number of books besides. At present he is pre- 
paring a complete edition of the ' Works of Roger Williams,' with a Memoir, 
which altogether will comprise two volumes, large 8vo, with copious indexes. In 
addition to his vast amount of literary work, Dr. Guild has long acted as a private 
tutor, for seven years he served as a member of the Common Council of Prov- 
idence, and for fifteen years as a member of the Common School Committee of that 
city. He has visited and examined many of the libraries of Europe, and rendered 
great service to the cause of education in many capacities. Dr. Guild was baptized 
by the late Dr. Stow, of Boston ; he received his honorary degree of Doctor of Laws 
from Shurtleff" College, he is as genial and thorough a Baptist as Rhode Island 
affords, and is an honor to his denomination. Justice demands that something be 
said here of another noble educator, who possesses many of the elements which 
marked Dr. Wayland, and on whom, in an important sense, his mantle has fallen. 

Martin B. Anderson, LL.D., ranks with the most successful educators in our 
country. He was born in Maine, 1815, and graduated with high honor from Water- 
ville College in 1840, when he entered the Theological Seminary at Newton. In a 
year from that time he was chosen Professor of Latin, Greek and Mathematics, 
in Waterville, and in. 1843 filled the chair of Rhetoric also in the same institution. 
He continued there as a broad, earnest and accomplished teacher, until 1850, when 
he became the proprietor and editor of the ' New York Recorder,' a weekly relig- 
ious paper of large influence. In 1853 he accepted the presidency of Rochester 



488 PRESIDENT ANDERSON. 

University, where be has done his great life-work. His entire mastery of Mental 
and Moral Philosophy, Ancient History and Political Economy, not only opened 
to him a wide range of practical usefulness as an educator and a scientific ex- 
plorer, in their correlated branches, but he has done most valuable work for the 
State as a publicist, especially in adjusting its public charities and educational plans. 

He has cheerfully placed his facile 

^gS^^fe^. pen, his store of literary attain- 

/^: ~-_ [Z , ments, and his executive ability, 

under perpetual contribution to the 
public good. As an orator, a tutor, 
IP an essayist and a philanthropist he 

^E\ has served his fellow-men, and all 

, , : , „ ■.., v jJbB§p his work bears the stamp of incisive 

, Z ,i originality. Few men have so con- 

^'^-^^^^^^^' ^ stantly met American wants by ar- 

Sfe ; '<% ~ tides of every sort, in journals, 

reviews, encyclopedias and reports 
on difficult questions, as President 
Anderson. Yet, few of these pro- 
ductions have been purely specula- 
tive. Always he keeps in view, 
and succeeds in commanding, that 
vigor of thought and directness of 
action which produce practical results in others, and especially on social and 
religious subjects. His whole being is organized on that economic plan which 
infuses himself into others, and stimulates the best impulses of all around him 
to emulate his examples and walk in his footsteps. In latter years, no man 
amongst American Baptists has done more to enlist its energies in our higher 
educational aims or has sacrificed so much to put them on a firm basis. God has 
blessed him with a mind and heart of the largest order, with a strong physical 
frame full of endurance, and with a vital ambition to bless men ; nor has be spared 
himself at any point to secure this end. As the first President of Rochester Univer- 
sity, his career has been wonderfully successful. He went to it in its weakness, and 
now its grounds and buildings are valued at $379,189, and its endowment amounts 
to $442,757, with a promising future ; for he has enstamped its character with high 
attributes, and interwoven his influence with its coming history as effectively as with 
that which is past. His weight and worth, as a public benefactor who dares to bless 
others at great cost to himself, will stimulate coming generations through those who 
have sat at; his feet as well as through his invigorating literary productions. 

John A. Broadus, D.D. Born in Culpeper County, Va., January 24th, 1827. 
He is an alumnus of the University of Virginia, having taken his Master's Degree 




DR. BROAD US. 



489 




in 1850. He served as tutor of Latin and Greek in that institution in 1851-52, 
after which he passed eight years as pastor of the Baptist Church at Charlottesville. 
In 1854 he was elected professor of Homiletics and New Testament interpretation in 
the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, then located at Greenville, S. C, which 
high position he still fills in the same 
school, now located at Louisville, Ky. 
Dr. Broadus is quite as much wedded 
to the pulpit as to the class-room. 
While at Greenville he preached to 
several small Churches in that vicin- 
ity, as their pastor. He is a thorough 
scholar, a delightful preacher and a 
finished writer. So deliberate are 
his methods of work, whether in the 
study, the seminary, or the pulpit, 
that all forms of labor appear easy to 
him. Yet his nature is intense, his 
convictions lay hold of all his powers, 
and his entire being is thrown into 
whatever he does. His quiet man- 
ner carries the impression to cultured 
minds that it springs from the be- 
hest of high intellect, answering the command of a mellow spirituality, and so it 
gives double force to his teaching and preaching. The severe drill of his life 
speaks without the least pretension. His works on preaching are plain, clear and 
profound, laying bare that art of splendid pulpit work of which he is so fine an ex- 
ample himself. His ' Treatise on Homiletics,' now a text-book on both sides of the 
Atlantic, stands side by side with his ' Lectures on the History of Preaching,' and 
makes him a teacher of teachers. To his other attainments he has added the benefits 
of travel in Europe and Asia, and his letters demonstrate his keen sense of dis- 
crimination. In private life he is winsome and unostentatious to a proverb, full of 
unaffected kindness and playful amiability. Children and sages equally love to 
gather around him, that they may listen to his humor and pathos ; and the more 
eager are they, because he never indulges these at the sacrifice of common sense 
or the solid simplicities of truth. Publicly and privately, out of the abundance 
of a true heart, he speaks in the freedom of truth unmixed with guile, or with the 
least tendency to that petty detraction which fatally blights many otherwise noble 
spirits in the Gospel ministry. 

This chapter may be appropriately closed by a sketch of "William Cathcart, 
CD. He has made the denomination his debtor by his patient investigations and 
literary contributions. His scholarly attainments and tireless industry have fitted 



JOHN A. BROADUS, D.D. 



490 



DR. WILLIAM CATHCART. 



him to do an order of literary work which no Baptist had done, in giving the world 
his ' Baptist Encyclopaedia.' Endowed with a thoroughly analytical mind, his 
studies have laid bare to him the radical extremes of Gospel interpretation used by 
the Roman Catholic and the Baptist. He has given the result in his ' Bapal System ' 
and ' Baptism of the Ages.' Having explored the philosophy of the Romish system 

fully in the one, he gives its 
, . -^.^ direct opposite in the other. 

Dr. Cathcart was born in 
Londonderry, Ireland, No- 
vember 8th, 1826, and was 
brought up a Presbyterian. 
Surrounded by the relig- 
ious contests of his nation 
and times, Ireland forced its 
contrasts upon his attention 
from childhood. He was 
fitted for college by private 
classical tutors, but took his 
literary course in the Uni- 
versity of Glasgow. On be- 
lls, coming a Christian, the dif- 
ference between the Presby- 
terians and Baptists was 
forced on his attention when 
at the age of twenty, and his 
convictions led him to for- 
sake the religion of his 
fathers. He was baptized on 
the confession of Christ, at Tubbermore, by Rev. R. H., son of Dr. Alexander Car- 
son. His theological course was taken at Horton College, under the presidency of 
the late Dr. Ackworth. In 1850 he was ordained pastor of the Baptist Church at 
Barnsley, but was so uneasy under the English yoke of Church and State that in 
1853 he left a prosperous pastorate to settle in America. The first pastoral charge 
which he took here was at Mystic, Conn., where he remained till 1857, when he 
became pastor of the Second Baptist Church, Philadelphia. 

He remained in this Church for eight-and-twenty years, doing such an excess of 
work that at last a constitution of uncommon strength began to break under the 
load, and he was obliged to retire to prevent utter prostration. Not only did his 
congregation in Philadelphia double in size, but it became necessary to build a large 
and beautiful sanctuary in a new location to accommodate the increase. His people 
loved him almost to idolization, and gave him up with the utmost reluctance. In 




WILLIAM CATHCART, D.D. 



THE OLD FAITH. 491 

1872 he published his 'Papal System;' in 1876, his ' Baptists and the American 
Revolution ; ' a monograph, on that subject, without a rival ; in 1878, his ' Baptism 
of the Ages,' and his 'Encyclopaedia ' in 1881. Having known Dr. Cathcart in in- 
timate friendship for a full generation, his habits of study, his unflagging persever- 
ance, and his uncompromising integrity, the writer is free to express the belief that 
no truer man lives in our Baptist brotherhood. As an eloquent preacher, a true 
friend, an honest man and a careful scholar, those who know him best regret the 
most his retirement in the prime of his manhood, as a serious loss in our effective 
ranks. He is but another example amongst its of the common sacrifice which our 
ministry makes to the strain of overwork. 

It is a re-assuring consideration that these Christian leaders, in company with 
the great body of Baptist ministers in America, hold fast to the old Gospel faith. 
The Philadelphia Association was troubled at its New York session, held there 
October 5th and 7th, 1790, by a question from the Church at Stamford, asking 
whether or not it should fellowship those who held the ' new system of divinity.' 
The Association answered in the negative, denouncing 'these fine-spun theories' in 
detail. Then the body passed this minute : ' This Association lament they have 
occasion again to call the attention of that part of. Zion we represent to another 
awful instance of departure from the faith once delivered unto the saints ; Mr. 
Nicholas Cox, late a brother in the ministry, having espoused, and artfully as well as 
strenuously endeavored to propagate, the fatal notion of the universal restoration of 
bad men and devils from hell. As such, w T e caiition our Churches, those of our 
sister Associations and Christian brethren of every denomination, to be aware of 
him.' Happily our ministry is too seriously engaged in saving men from ' the wrath 
to come' to give much attention at present to the restoration of lost men and 
demons from perdition. When they get to heaven they may find time to specu- 
late as to what can be done for those ' in prison,' if God shall call them there to 
that order of thought. But while they are filling their present pastorates amongst 
the lost sons of Adam's race, their chief duty to their Master and to ' bad men ' is to 
cry, ' Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world ! ' As minis- 
ters of Christ, sent to save wicked men, ' pulling them out of the fire,' as Jude 
expresses himself, it is quite as absurd to spend their strength in this controversy 
as it wonld be for twin chicks in one shell to fight over the question whether the 
outside world is all yelk or all white. It is simply shameful that a man intrusted 
with the care of immortal souls should be obliged to say to his Master, of one of 
them, ' As thy servant was busy here and there, arguing that if he should be con- 
signed to perdition he will finally be rescued, lo ! he was gone ! ' 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES— LITERATURE— REVIVALS. 

PERHAPS, sufficient has been said already about the early efforts of the 
Baptists to provide facilities for general and theological education, but there is a 
disposition to linger and contemplate the great contrast presented between the firmly 
laid foundations and the present state of the structure. As early as 1813 a charter was 
obtained for the Maine Literary and Theological Institution, and in 1818 a school 
was opened at Waterville, under the charge of Jeremiah Chaplin, D.D., who 
for several years had been giving theological instruction to a few young men who 
had removed with him to "Waterville from his pastorate at Danvers, Mass, In 1820 
this school was incorporated as a college, with both a collegiate and a theological 
department, but when Newton' Institution was opened, instruction in divinity was 
discontinued and the institution grew into what is now Colby University. The 
spread of Baptist principles in this country is nowhere more strongly seen than by 
our present educational statistics. The State of New York is a fair example. In 
1817 there were only three educated Baptist ministers in that State, west of the 
Hudson. Thirteen men met at the house of Deacon Jonathan Olmstead, in Hamil- 
ton, September 24th, 1817", and contributed $13 to the cause of theological educa- 
tion in founding what has now become Madison University, and the first class 
which graduated from the infant institution numbered but six members. To-day, 
1886, the property and endowments of the Baptist institutions of learning in New 
York are estimated at $2,133,000. The Hamilton Literary and Theological Institu- 
tion was opened on May 1st, 1820. Its first Professor was Rev. Daniel Hascall, and 
in the following fall, Elder Nathanael Kendrick, of Eaton, was employed to visit 
the school and lecture on moral philosophy and theology three times a week. The 
first regular class in Divinity was organized under his instruction, in June, 1822. 
Two members of this class were Jonathan Wade and Eugenio Kincaid, both of 
whom went on missions to Burma. 

Gradually, the length of the course of study was extended and its variety 
enlarged, until in 1839 the restriction to candidates for the ministry was widened, 
granting the privileges of the institution to ' students of good moral character not 
having the ministry in view.' This enlargement, however, was accompanied by the 
provisions that : ' No change should be made in the course of instruction to favor 
such students, that they should in no case exceed the number of those preparing for 
the ministry, and that in no other way should the privileges of the latter be abridged 




REV. E. DODGE. 
REV. H. G. WESTCJI. 
REV. G. W. XORTHRUP. 



RET. A. HOVEY. 
REV. J. P. BOTCE. 
REV. A. H. STRONG. 



PRESIDENTS OF MADISON UNIVERSITY. 493 

by reason of this arrangement.' The institution was supported by contributions 
from the Churches and by the help of the Education Society. By degrees which 
it is not necessary to trace here, it became the Madison University of to-day, having 
had a rare succession of Professors and graduates. Dr. Kendrick, who had been 
its head till 1836, was at that time formally elected its President, in which capacity 
he continued until 1848. Stephen W. Taylor, LL.D., became its second President 
in 1851, but died in 1856. Dr. Taylor was a layman of very high character. He 
graduated at Hamilton College, Oneida Co., N. Y., and had devoted his life to 
teaching. For two years he acted as principal of the academy connected with the 
University, but left in 1836, after which he founded the Lewisburg University, in 
Pennsylvania, and returned as President of Madison. Rev. George W. Eaton, D.D., 
LL.D., was the third President of this renowned institution. He was a graduate of 
Union College and had devoted his life to teaching, his first professorship being that 
of Ancient Languages, at Georgetown, Ky. He became Professor of Mathematics 
and Natural Philosophy, at Hamilton, in 1833, was elected to the chair of Ecclesias- 
tical and Civil History, in 1837 ; in 1850 he became Professor of Systematic The- 
ology and President of Madison University, in 1856 Professor of Intellectual and 
Moral Philosophy, and in 1861 he was chosen President of Hamilton Seminary and 
Professor of Homiletics. He died August 3d, 1872, at the age of 68 years, having 
been connected with the Institution in one capacity or another for forty years, in 
prosperity and adversity, until its interests and history became a part of himself and 
the chief end of his existence. Dr. Eaton would have been a man of mark in 
any sphere of life. In body, intellect and soul, he possessed a uniform greatness, 
which, without exaggeration, entitle him to the appellation of a threefold giant. 
He knew nothing of cowardice, moral or otherwise, but met every issue which arose 
in the affairs of the denomination and the times, on the high and broad plane of 
Christian manliness. His first and last question on all subjects was, 'Is this right?' 
"When that question was determined in his own mind his position was taken, whether 
he stood alone or with the multitude. His memory was what he would have called 
' prodigious,' his eloquence massive, his hospitality warm, and his convictions of duty as 
deep as his nature. Withal, his sympathy with the weak, the wronged and the 
suffering, was extraordinary. He was as artless as a child, and his unsuspecting 
nature was often imposed upon, while he gave his strong arm to help every one. 
He was too impulsive for a thorough disciplinarian and too pure for any one to 
despise. 

Ebenezer Dodge, D.D., LL.D., the fourth President of Madison University, 
is a native of Massachusetts, born at Salem, April 21, 1819. He is an alumnus of 
Brown University and studied theology at Newton. He served as pastor of the 
Baptist Church in New London, N. H., for seven years, with marked power, but 
was called from his pastorate to the chair of Christian Theology in 1853. In 1868 

he was elected President of Madison University and in 1871 President of Hamil- 
34 



494 NEWTON THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTION. 

ton Theological Seminary. He is a ripe scholar and a profound theologian. Under 
his administration the career of the University has been one unbroken progress ; 
for it has enjoyed the greatest prosperity in its history in all its departments, so that 
it never occupied the commanding position which it does at this time. Dr. Dodge 
has contributed to the standards of Theology in his work on the ' Evidences of Chris- 
tianity ; ' and his ' Theological Lectures,' now confined to the use of his students, 
exhibit the hand of a master in deep thought and ripe scholarship. He has many 
valuable manuscripts ready for the press, which, it is believed, will stand side by side 
with his present publications, and, as they are the results of his life-long experience, 
may even excel them in their advanced value. 

The Newton Theological Institution has a most interesting history. At a large 
meeting of ministers and laymen held in Boston, May 25th, 1825, it was resolved that 
a Baptist Theological Institution in the vicinity of Boston was a necessity, and the 
Massachusetts Baptist Educational Society was requested to take steps in that direc- 
tion. Its executive committee fixed upon Newton Center for a location, and selected 
Rev. Irak Chase to begin instruction. The foundations of the school were laid with 
great difficulty and in much faith and prayer. Students increased faster than the 
necessary provisions for their reception, and heavy debts were incurred. It was many 
years before its permanent endowment was secured with corresponding success. All 
connected with the undertaking made great sacrifices, and Dr. Chase gave twenty 
years of his valuable life to the enterprise with an unselfishness that has laid the 
Baptists of New England under a debt which they will never be able to discharge. 
The course of instruction was to cover three years, and to be specially adapted to 
college graduates familiar with the Latin and the Greek. Dr. Chase commenced 
his work in the autumn of 1825, and in the next year Prof. Henry J. Ripley was 
added. Prof. James D. Knowles came to their aid in 1834, Rev. Barnas Sears in 
1836, and in 1838, upon the death of Prof. Knowles, Prof. Hackett left his chair 
in Brown University to take his place in the corps of tutors. Not far from 800 stu- 
dents have gone forth from its hallowed bosom to fill places of high trust, and under 
its present faculty it is doing, if possible, better work than ever and promises a 
splendid future. 

Alvah Hovey, D.D., LL.D., its President, is a native of Greene, Chenango 
Co., N. Y., and was born March 5th, 1820. He graduated from Dartmouth Col- 
lege in 1844, and spent three years at Newton as a theological student. After 
preaching for a year, in 1849 he first became a tutor in Hebrew, at Newton ; and 
then in succession, Professor of Church History, Theology, and Christian Ethics, and 
President ; so, that, for thirty-seven years he has consecrated all his energies to the 
training of young ministers in this renowned seminary. This long experience, gov- 
erned by a sacred regard for divine truth and by a remarkably sound judgment in 
expounding its principles, has made his tuition far-reaching, and given to our 
Churches a fullness, of doctrine and devotion which has been strong and abiding. 



THE ROCHESTER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 493 

Dr. Hovey is distinguished for his clear perception of Gospel doctrines, to which 
he cleaves simply because they are divinely true. First of all he is just, which 
renders his aims high and unselfish, besides making his counsels sensible and sound. 
His pen has been ever busy ; he is the author of about a dozen volumes, amongst 
which are his ' Person and Work of Christ,' the ' Miracles,' his ' Higher Christian 
Life,' and his k Memoirs of Dr. Backus,' all valuable productions. This veteran 
educator is beloved and trusted by the Churches everywhere, as far as he is known, 
and his present vigor promises to bless them for many years to come. 

The third Theological Seminary founded by the American Baptists was that 
at Rochester, N. Y. About 1847 many friends of Madison University thought its 
usefulness would be greatly increased by its removal from the village of Hamilton 
to a more populous center. After considerable controversy, and some litigation, the 
question of its removal was abandoned. The University of Rochester was founded 
in 1850, and in the following .November a Theological Seminary was organized, 
distinct, however, in its property and government. From the first, its list of instruct- 
ors has comprised the names of very eminent scholars. Its first two professors were 
Thomas J. Conant, D.D., and John S. Maginnis, D.D.; Ezekiel G. Robinson, 
D.D., LL.D., became its President in 1868, after most valuable service as professor 
from 1853. In 1872 he was elected President of Brown University, when Rev. 
Augustus H. Strong, D.D., was chosen to fill his position both as President and Pro- 
fessor of Biblical Theology at Rochester. This school has been liberally endowed 
and has given to the Churches a succession of pastors of the highest stamp for excel- 
lency in every respect. Its German Department was early enriched by the library 
of Neander, and its buildings have been provided by the munificence of J. B. 
Trevor, Esq., of New York, and John D. Rockefeller, Esq., of Cleveland. Hon. R. 
S. Burrows, of Albion ; John M. Bruce, J. A. Bostwick and "William Rockefeller, 
Esqs., of New York, have given large sums to replenish its library, and a host of 
other friends have carried its interests to a high state of prosperity by their Chris- 
tian benefactions. 

Dr. Strong, its President, was born at Rochester, August 3d, 1836, and gradu- 
ated from Yale College in 1857. While a student at Yale he was brought to Christ, 
and united with the First Baptist Church in Rochester ; but after his graduation 
he first entered the Theological Seminary in that city, and then completed his studies 
in the German universities. On his return from Europe, in 1861, he was ordained 
pastor of the Baptist Church at Haverhill, Mass., which he left in 1865 to become 
pastor of the First Church, Cleveland, O., from whence he went to take his present 
place, after seven years of successful pastoral toil. Although Dr. Strong is the 
youngest of our theological presidents, the classes which come from under his hand 
evince his care in training and his wisdom in impressing them with that robust 
impress of Biblical theology which betokens their reverence for the heavenly vision. 
Endowed himself with insight into spiritual things, with keen faith and high sane 



496 REV. DR. BOYCE. 

tity, they catch his spirit, and their ministry evidences their love for that Lord 
whose they are and whom they serve. He is the author of numerous notable articles 
on theological subjects, but his most elaborate and weighty book is his ' Systematic 
Theology,' recently published. It is a work of great research, indicating the strength 
and solidity, as well as the logical and analytical power, of the author's mind. Having 
already spoken of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, it is not necessary to 
treat of its interests here, further than to speak of its President, who is in all 
respects the peer of his presidential brethren. 

James P. Boyce, D.D., LL.D., was born in Charleston, S. C, January 11th, 
1827. In 1847 he graduated from Brown University, and, having been converted 
while in college, he was baptized in 1848 by the Rev. Dr. Richard Fuller. From 
1848 to 1851 he studied theology at Princeton, JS". J. He threw all his energies 
into his theological studies, and when he was examined for ordination to the minis- 
try, Dr. Curtis, moderator of the examining council, asked him whether he intended 
to give his life to the preaching of the Gospel. He replied : ' Provided I don't be- 
come a professor of theology.' In 1851 he became pastor of the Church at Co- 
lumbia, S. C, but took the chair of theology in Furman University in 1855. He 
accepted a professorship in the Theological Seminary at Greenville, S. C, however, 
in 1858. The seminary being located but temporarily there, in 1873 it was resolved 
to remove it to Louisville, its friends in Kentucky having offered $300,000 for its 
permanent establishment there, provided that $200,000 could be added from other 
sources. When financial embarrassment threatened the ruin of this great scheme, 
Dr. Boyce, who at that time was wealthy, borrowed large sums of money on his 
own responsibility, and threw his surprising financial talents into the enterprise. 
For about seven years it seemed as if the godly project must fail, and gloom, almost 
despair, settled upon the hopes of its friends. But Dr. Boyce by his patience and 
business skill re-inspired the energies of his brethren, and more than any other 
person led the movement to complete success. He is a refined and dignified gentle- 
man, whose modest polish of manner, generous culture and varied accomplishments 
clothe him with a delightful influence in all spheres in which he moves, so that he 
is pre-eminently fitted to mold his pupils in the proprieties demanded by their 
calling. Clearly, it must be the fault of the pupil if he goes forth to his work 
without that refinement of manner, together with that mental and heart culture, 
which are demanded in the acceptable minister of our Lord Jesus. 

The Baptist Union Theological Seminary at Morgan Park, Illinois, was organ- 
ized in 1863. Up to about the year 1860 the West had been wholly dependent 
upon the East for theological education ; but in 1859 a convention of delegates 
representing the West and North-west gathered in Chicago to consult respecting the 
establishment of a new seminary in that part of our country. The difference of 
opinion as to location was so striking that general agreement was not then reached. 
At length a preliminary organization was effected, in 1860, under the lead of W. W. 



REV. DR. NORTHRUP. 497 

Everts, D.D., J. B. Olcott, and J. A. Smith, and in 1863 a corporation was formed 
and officers chosen ; Hon. P. S. Thomas being President, Luther Stone, Secretary, 
and Edward Goodman, Treasurer. In 1865 the Legislature of Illinois granted it a 
charter. A temporary arrangement was made with Dr. Nathanael Colver to com- 
mence theological tuition, but a regular faculty was selected in 1866, and in the 
autumn of that year the work of instruction began in earnest. Since that time reli- 
able endowments have been received, the faculty has been very effective, the semi- 
nary has been removed to Morgan Park, and is in a high state of prosperity. It 
has already graduated about 500 students. Its beautiful property at Morgan Park, 
and an endowment of $200,000, with a library of 25,000 volumes, promise much, 
with its able body of tutors, for the culture of the rising ministry in the West. 

George W. Northrup, D.D., LL.D., its President, was born in Jefferson 
County, N. Y., October 15th, 1826, and when but sixteen years of age became a 
member of the Baptist Church at Antwerp. His early educational advantages were 
slight, but from childhood he possessed that quenchless thirst for knowledge and 
culture that refuses to submit to any obstructions which assume to be insurmount- 
able. He plodded on in the study of Latin, Greek and mathematics with such pri- 
vate aids only as he could command, until he was able to enter Williams College. 
In 1854 he graduated from that institution with the highest honors, and in 1857 
finished a theological course at the Rochester Seminary. There, also, he served with 
distinguished ability as Professor of Church History for ten years. He accepted 
the chair of theology and the presidency in the seminary, which he has done so 
much to establish, in 1867, and in contending with the difficulties incident to the 
founding of a new institution he has displayed the qualities of a forceful leader 
and organizer. His wise methods and strength of will have braved all storms, and 
commanded that signal success which has given the West as strong and well-con- 
ducted a theological seminary as any in the East, in view of its youth. As a meta- 
physician, pulpit orator and theologian, Dr. North rup is an honor to his denomina- 
tion. The youngest of the six theological schools is the 

Crozer Theological Seminary, located at Chester, in Pennsylvania, and organ- 
ized in 1868. The late John P. Crozer, Esq., was deeply interested in ministerial 
education, and had largely aided therein through the Lewisburg University. After 
his death his family took up the work where he left it, to give it an enlarged and 
more permanent form. Led by his eldest son, Mr. Samuel A. Crozer, his other sons 
and daughters established this seminary as a devout monument to his name, and all 
generations will therefor call them blessed. The buildings and grounds are spacious, 
valued at $150,000 ; the endowment amounts to about $350,000, and the library 
and apparatus are ample for present use, although the library building is planned to 
contain about 50,000 volumes. William Bncknell, son-in-law to Mr. John P. Crozer, 
made a donation of about $30,000 for the purchase of books, and a further sum of 
),000 was presented from another source for the same purpose. Its average num- 



498 REV. DR. WESTON. 

ber of pupils is about fifty per year, its faculty is one of the best in the denomina- 
tion, and it has sent about 300 men into the Christian ministry ; many of whom are 
now filling places of great influence and responsibility. 

Henry G. "Weston, D.D., has been president of this institution from its foun- 
dation, and has contributed greatly to its up-building. He is a native of Lynn, 
Mass., and was born September 11th, 1820. He graduated at Brown University 
and Newton Theological Institution, and after sustaining himself for three years as 
a missionary in Illinois, became pastor of the Baptist Church in Peoria in 1846, 
where he was prospered for thirteen } r ears. In 1859 he removed to New York city, 
to take charge of the Oliver Street Baptist Church, in which congregation he 
remained, first in Oliver Street, and then in Madison Avenue when it removed, 
until the year 1868, when he took the presidency of Crozer Seminary. His double 
aim was to give a complete theological training to the alumni of our colleges, who 
could study the Scriptures in the Greek and pursue the Hebrew ; and also to take 
men who were somewhat advanced in life, but could not command a classical 
course ; to aid them in the knowledge of the Scriptures and in theological studies, 
that they might be measurably qualified, at least, for their pastoral work. A peculiar 
order of ability was needed in the president who should well lay the foundations 
of such a school. Not only must he be a true scholar, and a clear, sound and experi- 
enced theologian, broad in his views, simple in his habits, kind in his disposition, 
and devout in his piety ; but quite as much he needed unflinching courage in his 
convictions. In a word, all the ripe qualities of manly experience were needed, 
with the forbearance and tenderness of a woman. Even then, the tact of a general 
was required, who knew the wants of the place and had the genius to meet them. 
Many men were scanned as to this fitness, but, with singular unanimity, Dr. Weston 
was hailed as the one man for the post. A ripe scholar and a pulpit master, it was 
believed that he could equally develop the immature and perfect the accomplished. 
The result has so far exceeded sanguine expectation, that all true Baptist hearts 
thank him for his work and praise his Master for the gift of the workman. For 
nearly a score of years he has been filling the pulpits of our land with men who are 
blessing it everywhere. The Baptist denomination, having possessed such a succes- 
sion of men in the presidency of its seminaries, should be grateful indeed, for not 
one of them, from the establishment of the first school, has ever brought a stain 
upon its fair fame. Aid not only in view of the past, but in the necessities of the 
present, it is to be congratulated ; happy are the Baptists of the United States in 
the possession of six such presidents of their theological schools. 

American Baptists have lately paid much attention to female education, and have 
twenty-seven institutions devoted to this object. A Ladies' Institute was founded 
at Granville, O., in 1832, which was followed by the Judson Female Institute, at 
Marion, Ala., in 1839 ; by Baylor Female College, at Independence, Tex., in 1845 ; 
and by the Female Seminary at Georgetown, Ky., in 1846. Mary Sharp College 



BAPTIST LITERATURE. 499 

was established, on a somewhat larger scale, at Winchester, Tenn., in 1851. But the 
largest and most thoroughly endowed Baptist institution for females is Yassar Col- 
lege, at Poughkeepsie, N. Y. It was founded by Matthew Yassar, in 1865, at a cost 
of $700,000. He excluded sectarian teaching, but put it under Baptist control, for- 
bidding that its training should ever be ' intrusted to the skeptical, the irreligious or 
the immoral.' Its endowment is $430,000, and it exerts a great influence on the 
higher education of women. Its presidents have been John H. Raymond, LL.D. ; 
S. L. Caldwell, D.D. ; J. R. Kendrick, D.D. ; and its present head, James M. Tay- 
lor, D.D., son of the late Dr. E. E. L. Taylor. 

The growth of a distinctively denominational literature in America has been 
closely kindred to the growth of the denomination and of its schools for education. 
From the antecedents of Baptist European life, under all its persecutions and disa- 
bilities, it was scarcely to be expected that Baptists would take any very prominent 
part in literature here. Still, it is one of the marvels of English literary history 
that the two men of the seventeenth ceutury whom Macaulay pronounces ' creative 
minds ' were decided Baptists in their religious convictions. He writes : ' We are 
not afraid to say that though there were many clever men in England during the 
latter part of the seventeenth century, there were only two great creative minds. 
One of these produced " Paradise Lost," and the other " Pilgrim's Progress." ' Milton 
spent his strength in his two most extensive prose works in proving that those 
principles which distinguish the Baptists are drawn from the Scriptures ; while 
Bunyan was a Baptist preacher, imprisoned for preaching at Baptist conventicles. 
As might have been expected, the writings of Baptists, both in the Old and New 
World, took a decidedly controversial tone. Roger Williams possessed high literary 
art, viewed in the ponderous style of his day, and advocated principles which are 
now universally conceded in the United States. His success in obtaining the charter, 
and the friendly admonition from England to the authorities of Massachusetts that 
they should be less severe with him, are justly attributed to the favorable impres- 
sions as to his purposes and spirit created in England by his writings, especially 
those in regard to the Indians. The occasion for the composition of the important 
works by which he is best known was furnished by the principle which he main- 
tained against Mr. Cotton. Five volumes, of which the 'Bloody Tenet' is the 
most noted, were published in London between the years 1641 and 1652 ; after the 
death of Cotton, Williams ceased to write upon these subjects. But the battle 
which he fought has long since been decided. Despite the grudging reluctance of 
those who hate his memory for his religious principles, and the tardy acknowledg- 
ment of his great power by those who hold those principles themselves, yet accuse 
him of inconsistency in their maintenance, the fact is clear that the tenets for which 
he contended so manfully against Cotton have incorporated themselves into all 
American institutions. 

Clarke, the founder of Newport, published a small volume on the persecutions 



SOO AMERICAN BAPTIST LITERATURE. 

in New England, but, so far as is known, the first Baptist theological work printed in 
America was a Catechism by John Watts, of Pennepec Church, in 1700. The next 
bears the following title, with an address to the reader, dated ' Providence, the 17th 
of February, 1718-19 : ' 

' Reply to the Most Principal Arguments contained in a Book, Entitled " The 
Baptism of the Holy Spirit without Elementary Water, Demonstratively proved 
to be the true Baptism of Christ.'''' Signed, William Wilkinson. In which Reply 
his arguments are fairly Refuted ; and both Water Baptism and the Lord's Supper 
plainly proved to be the commands of Jesus Christ, and to continue in force until 
His Second Personal Coming. By Joseph Jenks. Printed in the year 1719.' 

Valentine Wightman published a volume on Baptism in 1728, which was the 
outcome of a debate on that subject. In 1730, a 'Concordance to the Bible ' in the 
Welsh language was published by Rev. Abel Morgan, which was largely used in 
the vicinity of Philadelphia. The historical discourse of John Callender, pastor of 
the Church at Newport, delivered in 1738, a hundred years after the founding of 
that city, has become a classic authority upon Providence and Rhode Island matters. 
Probably the first sermon published by a Southern Baptist was Isaac Chanler's, with 
the title : ' The Doctrines of Glorious Grace enforced, defended, and practically 
improved.' Boston, 1714. Having already spoken of the writings of Abel Morgan 
and Samuel Stillman, it is not necessary to mention them here. The history of ' New 
England Baptists,' by Dr. Backus, has become a standard, and is thoroughly reliable 
in its general treatment of facts. Its author himself had been actively engaged 
in the advancement of religious liberty, and especially in awakening a public senti- 
ment to be expressed in legislation against the privileges and immunities accorded 
to the State Church. Since its first publication it has passed through a number of 
revisions and in its present form it is. indispensable to a full and true history of 
New England. The works of Backus and Morgan Edwards were used largely 
by David Benedict, who published the first edition of his 'History of the Baptists' 
in 1812, a work which he enlarged in 1848 to embrace a sketch of the Baptists 
not only in every State of the Union but in all parts of the world. This book has 
passed through many editions, and remains a noble monument to the untiring toil 
and patience of its author. 

During the first half of our national existence the books written by. Baptists 
were, for the most part, intended to instruct Church members in the doctrines and 
duties of Christianity. The authors and titles of a few of them may be mentioned. 
Dr. Samuel Jones wrote a 'Treatise of Discipline ;' Dr. William Rogers published 
a work on ' Justification ; ' Dr. Jesse Mercer, on ' Various Christian Duties,' and on 
the ' Unity and Inter-dependence of the Churches.' President Maxcy wrote largely 
on the Atonement, one production in which the 'governmental' theory of the 
Atonement is treated of. Dr. Baldwin's discourse on the ' Deity of Christ,' pub- 
lished in 1812, during the Unitarian Controversy, passed through many editions, as 



BAPTIST PERIODICALS. 501 

did, also, Dr. Judson's Sermon preached in Calcutta, in 1812, and republished in 
America in 1817, in which he defended his course in becoming a Baptist. Numer- 
ous tracts, sermons and pamphlets, have been published on Baptism and Communion, 
and, perhaps, none of them have been more widely circulated or useful than those 
of the late Rev. Stephen Remington. We greatly need a work on Baptist Bib- 
liography, and another on Baptist hymnology. 

So far as is now known, the first Baptist periodical published in America was 
the 'Analytical Repository,' in Savannah, Ga., by Rev. Henry Holcombe, then pastor 
of the Church there. Its first issue was for the months of May and June, 1802, and 
its publication is said to have continued for two years, though the second volume is 
not known to be extant. The first volume consists of six numbers, the sixth being 
for March and April, 1803. It was a 12mo, each number containing 48 pages. Its 
historic value lies chiefly in its account of the general proceedings which led to the 
organization of the Georgia Baptist State Convention; in its detail of the first efforts 
toward mitigating the hardship of the Penal Code, petit larceny being at that time 
a capital crime ; in an account of the Savannah Female Orphan Asylum, which was 
established by Dr. Holcombe, and still exists ; in a narrative concerning the found- 
ing of the Baptist Church in Savannah, and in a sketch of the colored Baptists in 
that city, also of several Churches in its vicinity. On the 20th of May, 1802, John 
Rice was executed in Savannah for stealing a gun, and on the day of his execution 
Dr. Holcombe took his children to his own house to cherish and comfort them ; he 
then prepared a memorial to the Legislature of Georgia, and procured a milder and 
more enlightened system of punishment. 

Nothing is more honorable to Dr. Henry Holcombe Tucker, the grandson of 
Dr. Holcombe, and to the Georgia Baptists, than their protest against all legal disre- 
gard of marital relations amongst slaves. At the meeting of the Georgia Associa- 
tion, held at Pine Grove, October 8th, 1861, Dr. Tucker offered the following 
resolution, which was unanimously adopted first by that body and afterward by 
various Associations in the State : 

' Hesolved, That it is the firm belief and conviction of this body that the institu- 
tion of marriage was ordained by Almighty God for the benefit of the whole 
human race, without regard to color ; that it ought to be maintained in its original 
purity among all classes of people, in all countries and in all ages, till the end of 
time ; and that, consequently, the law of Georgia, in its failure to recognize and 
protect this relationship between our slaves, is essentially defective and ought to be 
amended.' 

The interest awakened in foreign missions in 1814 naturally found expression 
in the establishment of a periodical to maintain and foster their interests by spread- 
ing information and appeals. The first missionary periodical published by the Amer- 
ican Baptists was known as the ' Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Magazine,' issued 
by the Massachusetts Missionary Society in September, 1803, a year after the organ- 
ization of the society. It was edited by Dr. Baldwin, first as a semi-annual of 



S02 • BAPTIST NEWSPAPER PRESS. 

thirty-two pages, filled with letters and reports from missionaries. In 1817 its 
numbers were issued once in two months, and in 1825 it was changed to a monthly, 
and has since been conducted in the interests of Foreign Missions. 'The Mace- 
donian' was started in 1842 for the diffusion of Foreign Mission news. In 1849 
the ' Home Mission Eecord ' was started to promote Home Missions, items relating 
to the subject having before appeared in various religious papers. Its name was 
changed to the ' Home Evangelist ' in 1863, and in 1867, by arrangement with 
the Missionary Union, it appeared under the title, ' The Macedonian and Record,' 
the first leaf containing home and the second foreign missionary intelligence ; but, in 
1878, the ' Baptist Home Mission Monthly ' was commenced, a quarto of sixteen 
pages which has since been enlarged to twenty-four, and it now reports the work 
of the Woman's Home Mission Societies. The following newspapers are mentioned 
after the dates of their establishment : 

The oldest Baptist weekly in America is ' The Watchman,' of Boston, estab> 
lished in 1819, with the title, the ' Christian Watchman,' and edited by Deacon 
James Loring. The question of slavery becoming a subject of warm discussion, the 
' Christian Reflector ' was begun at Worcester, Mass., edited by Rev. Cyrus P. 
Grosvenor. This paper was removed to Boston in 1844, under the editorship of 
Rev. H. A. Graves, where it obtained a large circulation ; but, Mr. Graves's health 
failing, Rev. J. W. Olmstead became its editor, March, 1846, and in 1848 the two 
papers were united, under the name, ' The Watchman and Reflector,' Dr. Olmstead 
remaining as editor. The ' Christian Era' was commenced in Lowell in 1852, but 
was removed to Boston after several years, and conducted by Dr. Amos Webster, 
and was merged into 'The Watchman and Reflector' in 1875, when the name of the 
united papers became ' The Watchman.' Dr. Olmstead resided in New York for a 
short time, but returned as editor-in-chief of ' The Watchman ' in 1882, and now 
ranks as the senior Baptist editor in the country, having conducted this paper, with 
a brief interval, for more than forty years. The influence of this journal is very 
healthful and deservedly wide-spread in New England. 

The Connecticut Baptist Missionaiw Society started the ' Christian Secretary' 
in 1822, with Elisha Cushman as editor. A succession of editors conducted it until 
1858, when Elisha Cushman, Jr., assumed charge, continuing it till his death in 
1876. Then S. D. Phelps, B.D., who had filled the pastorate of the First Baptist 
Church at New Haven, under the shadow of Yale College, for thirty years, became 
its editor, and has done a most forceful work in making it an indispensable exponent 
of the principles and progress of the Connecticut Baptists. 

The ' Christian Index,' now published at Atlanta, Ga,, had its origin in the 
' Columbian Star,' a weekly folio sheet, originated at Washington, D. O, about the 
year 1822, by Luther Rice, assisted by Dr. Staughton and O. B. Brown ; it was de- 
voted principally to the advocacy of foreign missions and education through the Col- 
umbian College. It appears to have been first edited by John S. Meehan, assisted by 



INDEX.— HERALD.— ZION'S ADVOCATE. S03 

the gentlemen already named, Mr. Brown editing in the same office a monthly called 
the ' Latter-Day Luminary.' Afterwards, the celebrated Professor J. D. Knowles, 
then a student in Washington, became its editor, and was succeeded by Baron 
Stow, then a student also. About the years 1826-28 it was removed to Philadel- 
phia, put under the management of Dr. W. T. Brantly, and issued as a quarto, under 
the name of ' The Columbian Star and Christian Index.' Late in 1832 or early in 
1833 it became the property of Jesse Mercer, who removed it to Georgia and 
edited it till 1840, when he presented it to the Baptist Convention of that State. 
William H. Stokes, who had assisted him, became editor-in-chief and remained in 
the chair till 1843, when he was followed by Dr. J. S. Baker till 1849. He had sev- 
eral successors, and Rev. Joseph Walker took charge in 1857. Under his careful 
toil it rose from about 1,000 paying subscribers to nearly 6,000, and yielded $1,000 
annually above its expenses. In 1861 it was sold to Rev. S. Boykin, and Dr. Shaver 
conducted it from 1867 to 1874. Then Pev. Dr. E. Butler became its editor, serving 
until 1878, when Dr. Tucker, its present learned chief, took the editorial chair. As 
a Baptist organ, it has always been unflinching in its maintenance of Baptist doctrine 
and practice. It retains the flavor imparted to it by Knowles, Brantly and Mercer, 
and is conducted with as much ability as it has commanded at any time in its hoary 
history of four-and-sixty years. 

The ' Religious Herald,' of Richmond, Va., was established by William Sande, 
a layman and an expert printer, in 1828. Like most other things that become of 
any account, it began its life in the day of small things. Mr. Sands lived in Balti- 
more, and, on the suggestion of William Crane, went to Richmond to establish a 
Baptist paper, aided by money furnished by Mr. Crane. For several years Mr. Sands 
was printer and financial manager, with Rev. Henry Keeling for editor, but the 
struggle to establish the journal was severe. Dr. Shaver put his strong hand to the 
enterprise in 1857, and the paper soon took that high position amongst religious 
periodicals which it has sustained ever since. William Sands died in 1868, lamented 
as a most devout Christian, possessed of the soundest judgment, and beloved by all 
who knew him for his amiable disposition. The establishment of Sands and Shaver 
was consumed by fire in 1865, and they sold the 'good will' of the paper to Messrs. 
Jeter and Dickinson. Dr. Jeter devoted fourteen of the ripest years of his life to its 
up-building, and not in vain. He has left a hallowed influence about its very name, 
and, under its present energetic management, its weekly blessings help to make 
bright homes for thousands of Christian families, North and South. 

' Zion's Advocate,' published at Portland, Me., was begun in 1828 with Rev. 
Adam Wilson as editor, who held this relation to it until 1848, with a short interval. 
Afterwards it was edited by various men of large capacity, amongst whom were Dr. 
W. H. Shailer. In 1873 the paper was purchased by Rev. Henry S. Burrage, its 
present editor, under whose direction its reputation and influence have been greatly 
enlarged. It has also been changed by him to its present enlarged size, and kept 



804 OHIO, KENTUCKY, TENNESSEE JOURNALS. 

abreast of the demands of the times, not only in the advocacy of our denominational 
principles and practices, but in awakening new enthusiasm in the cause of education 
amongst our Churches in Maine. The sound judgment and careful scholarship with 
which it is conducted render it worthy of its high place in our periodical press. 

The ' Journal and Messenger,' published at Cincinnati, O., originated in the 
'Baptist "Weekly Journal ' of the Mississippi Valley, in 1831. In 1834 the ' Cross,' 
a Baptist paper of Kentucky, was united with it, and seven years later it was removed 
to Columbus, O., with Messrs. Cole, Randall and Batchelor as editors. The ' Chris- 
tian Messenger' was united with it in 1850, under the name of the 'Journal and 
Messenger.' It then changed owners and editors several times, until it was purchased, 
in 1876, by G. W. Lasher, D.D., by whom it has been edited since in a vigorous 
manner ; its circulation has become large, and it well cultivates its important field. 

' The Western Recorder.' Various attempts were made to establish a Bap- 
tist paper in Kentucky, but failed until the ' Baptist Banner ' originated at Shelby- 
ville in 1835. At that time it was a fortnightly ; but in 1835 Rev. John ~N. Waller 
became its editor, when it was removed to Louisville and issued as a weekly. Soon 
it was united with the 'Baptist,' which was published at Nashville, Tenn., and with 
the ' Western Pioneer,' of Illinois, becoming the ' Baptist Banner and Western 
Pioneer.' In 1811 Mr. Waller ceased to be its editor, and was succeeded by Rev. 
W. C. Buck ; but in 1850 Mr. Waller returned to the paper, aided by Rev. S. H. 
Ford, and in 1851 its name was changed to the ' Western Recorder.' Dr. Waller 
died in 1851, and Mr. Ford became its sole editor and proprietor ; but, after a time, 
it passed into other hands until 1858. During a part of the civil war its issue was 
suspended, but it was resumed in 1863, when it was owned and edited by various 
persons till about 1872 ; then A. C. Caperton, D.D., became its sole owner and 
editor. It had never fully paid its way until that time, but he changed its form 
from a quarto to an octavo, and enlarged its size about one third. He also employed 
paid contributors and a field editor, and it steadily grew in power, popularity and 
financial value, until it is now regarded as one of the leading journals of the South. 

' The Tennessee Baptist' was established under the name 'The Baptist,' at 
Nashville, Tenn., in the year 1835 ; two or three years after that it was consolidated 
with the ' Western Baptist and Pioneer,' and was edited by the late Dr. Howell and 
others; but its circulation barely crept up to 1,000 copies until, in 1816, it fell 
into the hands of Dr. J. R. Graves, its present editor. It then assumed its present 
name, and, under his persevering and energetic management, its circulation increased 
rapidly and became very large. During the civil war its publication was suspended. 
At its close the paper was removed to Memphis, the word ' Tennessee ' dropped 
from its name, and its circulation, as a quarto of sixteen pages, has again reached a 
high figure. Dr. Graves is endowed with marked qualifications for an editor. 
As a writer and speaker he is remarkably direct and copious, like all men in down- 
right earnest, infusing his spirit and principles into the minds of his constant 



NEW TORE BAPTIST JOURNALS. 80S 

readers and hearers. Restless and aggressive, his pen is ever busy, not only as 
an editor, leaving his own stamp upon his paper, but as an author his works 
teem from the press perpetually in the form of books and pamphlets. His life 
has been devoted with quenchless zeal to the cause of higher education, and the 
literature of the Southern Baptist Sunday-School Union and Publication Society 
has been built up chiefly under his untiring labors. In the South and South-west 
the ' Baptist ' is an indisputable power in the advocacy of the most pronounced Bap- 
tist principles and practices. After the war its publishing-house was burned, and its 
assets, to the amount of $100,000, destroyed, yet, without a dollar to begin with, 
Dr. Graves re-established his paper at Memphis. He has been its vigorous editor 
in an unbroken connection for forty years, and stands at his post, at nearly three- 
score-and-ten, the unfaltering advocate of the old landmarks of Baptist life, decided 
and distinct in all its denominational trends and interests. 

' The Examinee,' a New York Baptist weekly, has probably the largest circu- 
lation of any Baptist paper in the world, and has a most interesting history. The 
' Baptist Advocate ' was commenced in 1839, by the late Trillium H. Wyckoff, 
L.L.D., who remained its editor till 1815, when it changed ownership and name, 
being called the ' New York Recorder.' In 1850 Dr. M. B. Anderson became its 
owner and editor, and remained so till 1853. It was consolidated in 1855 with the 
' Baptist Register,' a weekly then published at Utica, X. Y. As far back as 1808, 
Daniel Hascall, John Lawton and John Peck commenced the 'Western Baptist 
Magazine ' in Central New York, as an organ of the Hamilton Missionary Society ; 
this again was merged into the ' Baptist Register,' and, in 1825, Alexander M. 
Beebee, LL.D., a gentleman of genuine ability, high literary taste and the soundest 
of judgment, became its editor. Under his wisdom and management it soon attained 
a large circulation and influence, and he remained editor almost to the time of his 
death, in 1856. Only in the previous year the ' Register ' had been combined with 
the ' Recorder,' with the further change of name to the ' Examiner,' under the edit- 
orship of Edward Bright, D.D., who had for some years been the Corresponding 
Secretary of the Missionary Union, and for a longer period one of the publishers 
of the ' Baptist Register.' The ' Xew York Chronicle,' monthly, was commenced in 
1849, but became a weekly in 1851. In 1854 it was bought by Pharcellus Church, 
D.D., and Rev. J. S. Backus. Dr. Church owned it alone from 1855 and continued 
its editor till 1865. when it was united with the ' Examiner ' under the name of the 
' Examiner and Chronicle ' ; but recently the older title has been resumed, and it is 
now known simply as ' The Examiner.' Dr. Bright has edited it for more than a 
generation with very marked ability and success, and has made it one of the most 
influential religious organs in our country. 

' The Baptist Weekxy,' published in Xew York, was formerly the organ of 
the Free Mission Society, which was organized in 1810. It was first known as the 
American Baptist,' and was edited by Rev. AYarham Walker. The ' Christian Con- 



S06 MICHIGAN.— ILLINOIS.— PENNSYLVANIA JOURNALS. 

tributor ' and the ' Western Christian ' were merged into this paper, which was 
located at Utica until 1857, and after its removal to New York it was edited by the 
late Dr. Nathan Brown, missionary first to Assam and then to Japan. Dr. A. S. 
Patton became its owner and editor in 1872, and still manages all its interests. From 
that time until recently Dr. Middleditch acted as associate editor, but has now retired 
to found a new journal, a monthly, known as the ' Gospel Age.' The ' Weekly ' has 
a large circulation, and is characterized for its kind spirit and firm maintenance of 
all that concerns the advancement of true Baptist interests in the world. 

' The Michigan Christian Herald,' of Detroit, was established by the Bap- 
tist Convention of Michigan, in 1842. At first it was a monthly, then a semi- 
monthly, but in 1845 it became a weekly. Some years after, the Convention sold it 
to Rev. Marvin Allen, when it was edited by Rev. Miles Sanford and others till 1861. 
Then it fell under the editorial direction of Dr. Olney, who more than maintained its 
high literary character ; but seeing that it was published at a financial loss, it was sold 
to the proprietors of the ' Christian Times and Witness,' of Illinois, in 1867. The 
Michigan Baptists, however, so felt the need of a State paper that the present pro- 
prietor of the ' Christian Herald,' Rev. L. H. Trowbridge, began its publication in 
1870, in the interests of educational work, chiefly through Kalamazoo College. So 
healthy was its influence that the State Convention adopted it as its official organ, 
and it has become indispensable to the support of denominational enterprise in the 
State. It is conducted with great care and ability, and circulates largely amongst 
the 30,000 Baptists of Michigan. 

' The Standard,' of Chicago, TIL, dates from August 31, 1853. It was started 
as a new paper by a committee of the Fox River Baptist Association, of which Rev. 
J. C. Burroughs was chairman, under the name of ' The Christian Times,' and was 
the successor of the ' Watchman of the Prairies.' The following November, Rev. 
Leroy Church and Rev. Justin A, Smith assumed the control of the paper, and 
about three years later Edward Goodman, who had been connected with it from its 
inception, became one of the proprietors. In January, 1875, Dr. J. S. Dickerson 
purchased the interest of Rev. Leroy Church. When Dr. Dickerson died, in 1876, 
Mrs. Dickerson, with her son, J. Spencer Dickerson, continued his interest in the 
paper. The circulation of the 'Standard' is large and its character very high; the 
rank which it sustains being all the testimonial needed by its managers to their enter- 
prise and the manly maintenance of their religious convictions. 

' The National Baptist.' Toward the close of 1864 our Churches in Phila- 
delphia and its vicinity felt the need of a well-sustained paper to sustain denomina- 
tional interests, especially in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The sum of $17,000 
was presented to the Baptist Publication Society for that purpose, and the first 
number was issued January 1st, 1865, under the editorial supervision of George W. 
Anderson, D.D. For three years Dr. Kendall Brooks acted as editor, but, becoming 
President of Kalamazoo College, Dr. Moss served as its editor until chosen pro- 



CHRISTIAN REVIEW.— BAPTIST QUARTERLY. S07 

fessor in Crozer Theological Seminary. Dr. H. L. Wayland, the present editor, 
took charge of the paper in 1872, and in 1883 it became his property. Its editorial 
department has always been in able hands, and as a weekly paper it has become a 
power in the denomination, its present circulation being greatly in excess of that at 
any previous period in its history. Dr. Wayland leaves the marks of a clear and 
powerful mind upon its columns, and conducts it in that spirit of open fairness 
which challenges the admiration of his brethren, who uniformly rejoice in his edi- 
torial success. 

The ' Christian Review,' a quarterly, was commenced in 1836, with Prof. 
Knowles as its first editor, but his sudden death in that year transferred his posi- 
tion to Dr. Barnas Sears, who brought it to the close of vol. vi. Dr. S. F. Smith 
then edited it to the close of vol. xiii, and Rev. E. G. Sears edited vol. xiv. Drs. 
Cutting, Turnbull, Murdock, Woolsey, Franklin "Wilson, G. B. Taylor and E. G. 
Robinson, carried it to the end of vol. xxviii, in 1863, at which time its publication 
terminated. In 1867 the Baptist Publication Society began the issue of the ' Baptist 
Quarterly,' with Dr. L. E. Smith as editor-in-chief, and Drs. Hovey, Robinson, Arnold 
and Gregory as associates. At the end of vol. ii, Dr. Weston took the editorial chair, 
and eight volumes were issued, when its publication was discontinued. Dr. Baumes, 
of Cincinnati, began the publication of the 'Baptist Review,' a quarterly, in 1878, 
but sold it in 1885, when its name was changed to the ' Baptist Quarterly,' and 
it is now under the editorial control of Dr. MacArtbur and Henry C. Vedder, Esq., 
New York. Many of the successive editors named performed their duties with 
remarkable ability, and won for the ' Review ' a recognition in the religious litera- 
ture of the land. The contributors, also, were amongst the best scholars and' 
thinkers of America, but our Churches had not reached an appreciation of its 
learned discussions and withheld their support. The present editors of the ' Quar- 
terly ' have somewhat popularized the character of the articles, and it bids fair 
to maintain its existence. The number of educated and scholarly persons in our 
Churches is constantly increasing, and the best thought of the finest minds in them 
is likely to receive generous encouragement in such a desirable enterprise. 

Besides the literary works which have been so abundantly mentioned in this work, 
in association with the many eminent Baptists treated of therein, it may be well to 
mention a few others which have done honor to their authors. Amongst an immense 
list we have Prof. Ripley on the Gospels, the Acts and the Epistle to the Hebrews ; 
Dr. Malcom's ' Dictionary of Names, Objects and Terms found in the Holy Script- 
ures ;' ' Christ in History,' by Dr. Turnbull ; the ' Creative Week,' the ' Epiphanies 
of the Risen Lord,' and the ' Mountain Instruction,' by Dr. Boardman. On Bap- 
tism, we have the 'Act of Baptism,' by Dr. Burrage ; 'The Mould of Doctrine,' 
by Dr. Jesse B. Thomas ; ' Baptism in the Christian System,' by Dr. Tucker ; and 
the great work of Dr. Conant, on ' Baptizein.' On missions we have Dr. Gammell's 
'History,' Dr. Edward Judson's life of his father, and the 'Story of Baptist 



508 BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY. 

Missions,' by Rev. G. W. Hervey. The Baptist press abounds in biographies of the 
great and the good, and in general literature. Several volumes have come from the 
pen of Dr. Mathews ; Abraham Mills has given us his great work on ' English 
Literature and Literary Men ; ' Mr. Hill and Mr. Bancroft have given us valuable 
works on rhetoric. Drs. Kendrick, J. L. Lincoln, Albert Harkness and J. R. 
Boise, have published editions of the Latin and Greek classics, which have been 
extensively used in schools and colleges. Dr. J. R. Loomis is the author of a series 
of Text books on Geology, Anatomy, and Physiology ; and Dr. Edward Olney, of 
a complete series of mathematical text-books. In language, Dr. Hackett has trans- 
lated Winer's ' Chaldee Grammar,' and Dr. Conant's edition of ' Gesenius's Hebrew 
Grammar ' is the standard authority in the schools of America and Europe. This 
list might be doubled in length as an exhibition of literary activity of which we 
may be proud when we take into account that all these authors have been toilers 
either in the professor's chair or the pulpit, so that the ordinary duties of life were 
laborious if not exhausting ; yet, out of their sound discipline, clear insight and 
good taste, they have been able to enrich almost every department of learning. 

Besides this, an immense popular and cheap literature has been created on 
special denominational topics, in the shape of tracts, pamphlets and small books, by 
the American Baptist Publication Society. Twenty-five Baptists met in Wash- 
ington, D. C, on the 20th of February, 1824, to consider the need of a tract society 
for the American Baptists. Rev. Noah Davis proposed that such a society should 
be formed, which idea was zealously favored by Messrs. Knowles, Staughton and 
Rice, and the body was organized at once. Its receipts for the first year were but 
$373 80, with which it issued 696,000 pages of tracts. Two years later its head- 
quarters were removed to Philadelphia, where it began to issue bound volumes. In 
1840 it commenced to employ colporteurs to circulate its publications and to perform 
itinerant missionary work in destitute regions, and the name of the society was 
changed in 1845 to its present form. It undertook Sunday-school missionary work 
in 1867, so that besides serving as a publishing house it preaches the Gospel from 
house to house by colporteurs, supplies families by gift or sale with Bibles and 
Baptist literature, and fosters the formation and aid of Sunday-schools. By a law 
of its own, a Sunday-school planted in a destitute region soon gives the nucleus of 
a Church, and a new literature adapted to youth, having this aim in view, has made 
its appearance. The ' Young Reaper,' commenced in 1856, reported a circulation 
for 1884-85 of 2,616,304 copies, and of the ' Bible Lesson Monthly,' in weekly 
parts, 5,448,000 copies. Within four years 900,000 copies of a popular Sunday- 
school song book were sold in the schools. A fair conception of the influence of 
the Society on the interest of Sunday-schools may be obtained, when it is stated, 
that in the current year for the Society's operations for 1884-85, 5,284,000 copies of 
Bible Lessons and 1,046,000 Advanced Quarterlies were sold, devoted to the exposi- 
tion of the Bible Lesson for the Sabbath. These, besides an endless number of bound 



REVIVALS OF RELIGION. S09 

volumes, for library and gift-books in the schools, present some idea of this new lit- 
erature created by the American Baptists within a score of years. 

The many notable things which have been spoken of in the rapid growth of 
the Denomination might be supplemented by many others, but only two can be 
named : the endowment of our Churches with marvelous love for the salvation 
of men, and their zeal in promoting general revivals of religion ; together with 
the new feeling of appreciation toward them by their brethren of other Chris- 
tian denominations. In the South and South-west there were many in the early 
part of this century who were too creed-bound, in all that related to the divine 
purposes and decrees, to labor for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the con- 
version of multitudes of sinners. Indeed, in North Carolina, some of the early 
Baptists were actually infected with the superstition of Baptismal Regenera- 
tion. When they were first visited by Gano, Miller and Vanhorn, they con- 
fessed to those men that they had been immersed without faith, believing that this 
would save them ; and some of their pastors confessed that they themselves were 
not converted, but were so anxious to baptize others that Burkitt and Read say, in 
the ' History of the Kehukee Association,' that they often baptized their candidates 
by fire-light in the night, lest they should change their minds before morning. This 
state of things gave rise to that Antinomianism which blighted many of the South- 
ern Churches for a time, till the more intelligent and evangelical shook off this 
bondage, and began to use the truths and measures set forth by Whitefield with such 
blessed results that they reaped rich harvests for Christ, especially in Virginia, 
Georgia and Kentucky ; the North soon caught the same spirit. 

About 1830 a general awakening was seen in our Churches, and what were called 
'two days' meetings ' began to be held, to pray and labor for the conversion of sin- 
ners. These were so marked in their effects that the time was prolonged to four 
days, and last of all to 'protracted meetings,' without regard to length of time. 
Then the system of modern evangelical labor was introduced, as some pastors left 
their pastorates to go from Church to Church, helping other pastors. Amongst the 
first of these was the Rev. Jacob Knapp, who resigned his pastoral duties at Water- 
town, N. Y., and devoted himself to that form of labor for more than forty years. 
His educational advantages had been light, but his mind was strong and his doctrines 
sound, enforced by an uncommon knowledge of Scripture. His statements of truth 
were devoid of all attempt at rhetorical finish, but he was unusually fervent and 
fluent. His mind was marked by strong logical tendencies and his sermons were 
full of homely illustrations, apt passages from the Bible, and close knowledge of 
human nature. In person he was short, squarely and stoutly built, his voice was 
deeply sepulchral and his manner self-possessed ; he was full of expedient and his will 
was indomitable. Crowds followed him, whole communities were moved by his 
labors and great numbers were added to the Churches. Dr. Reuben Jeffery edited 
his sermons and Autobiography, which were published in 1868, and gave a livelv 

35 



BIO CONVERSION OF YOUTH. 

picture of his style and labors. Mr. Knapp says that he kept an account of the num- 
ber converted under his ministry for the first twenty years' work as an evangelist, but 
gave up the attempt after the count reached 100,000. Of course, he met with much 
opposition, and often he was charged with a love of money ; but he says that, aside 
from his traveling expenses, he received from the Churches only about $500 per 
annum. The writer heard him preach many times, and judged him, as he is apt to 
judge men, more by his prayers than his sermons, for he was a man of much prayer. 
His appearance in the pulpit was very striking, his face pale, his skin dark, his 
mouth wide, with a singular cast in one eye bordering on a squint ; he was full of 
native wit, almost gestureless, and vehement in denunciation, yet so cool in his de- 
liberation that with the greatest ease he gave every trying circumstance its appro- 
priate but unexpected turn. 

Other evangelists soon entered the field, many of them meeting with good 
success. Amongst these may be mentioned T. J. Fisher, of Kentucky, with Messrs. 
Raymond, Swan, Earle, DeWitt and Graves. Many of our pastors have been 
noted for the culture of revival influences in their Churches, some of them through 
a long course of years ; as in the case of the late Lyman Wright, and of the two 
honored men who have held the same pastorates with great power for more than 
forty years: Dr. George C. Baldwin, of Troy, N. Y., and Dr. Daniel G. Corey, of 
Utica, N. Y. These are mentioned simply as examples of many others in our min- 
istry. And it has been specially delightful in latter years to find numbers of the 
Presidents and Professors in our colleges and universities laboring with great energy 
for the salvation as well as for the education of their students, some of them reap- 
ing a large harvest. So that, taking the denomination as a whole, during the present 
century there has been an increase of zeal wisely used in this direction. The natural 
tendency of things in the olden times of harsh and hard controversy on infant' 
baptism, when our fathers were obliged to struggle all the time for the right to be, 
was, to look with comparative indifference, if not suspicion, on the conversion of 
youth in very tender age. Happily, that unreasonable and unlovely state of things 
is passing away, and our Churches are learning the holy art of winning very young 
children to Jesus, as soon as they can understand his claims upon them and are able 
to love and serve him. Inasmuch as we reject the fraud of practicing upon them 
a rite which leaves them no choice in casting their own religious life, we are under 
double obligation to teach, and draw, and watch, and influence them, to the serv- 
ice of our precious Master. We have come to look upon the neglect of these 
duties as sheer and downright wickedness, and instead of leaving our children to 
run wild until their hearts are all gnarled and scarified, like a knotted oak-tree, 
we are bringing our little ones to Jesus, that he may lay his hands on them and 
bless them. 

The better understanding which has arisen between Baptists and other Christians 
is a matter for gratitude, and especially because our Churches have in no wise com- 



A FRANK ADMISSION. 3 1 1 

promised their honor or consistency to secure this result. The candor and grasp of 
German scholarship and the independence of English High Churchmen has had 
much to do with this change. In the German and English controversies on baptism, 
especially in the Tractarian movement of the latter, the concession has been made 
without reluctance that the classical and ecclesiastical literature "of the New Testa- 
ment period and the early Christian centuries sustain the Baptist position. Then, 
in justification of the change which early took place in the ordinances, instead of 
forcing all sorts of unnatural interpretations upon the facts and teachings of the 
Bible, the open avowal is very commonly made, that the Church had the right to 
change Christ's ordinances as convenience required. A noted example in point is 
that of the late Dean of Westminster, who, when visiting America in 1878, replied 
to an address of welcome from the Baptist ministers of New York and Brooklyn on 
November 4th. thus : 

' You have alluded to me in your address as an ecclesiastical historian, and have 
referred to the undoubted antiquity of your principal ceremony— that of immersion. 
I feel that here, also, we ought to be grateful to you for having, almost alone in the 
"Western Church, preserved intact this singular and interesting relic of primitive and 
Apostolic times, which we, you will forgive me for saying so — which we, at least in 
our practice, have wisely discarded. For wise reasons the Primitive Baptism was 
set aside. The spirit which lives and moves in human society can override even the 
most sacred ordinances.' 

Here, a manly honesty meets an issue of stubborn facts not with a flat and false 
denial of its existence, but with the real reason for setting aside a Divine institu- 
tion. The frankness of this statement is characteristic of the man ; he boldly tells-, 
us that those who have ceased to immerse have 'discarded ' the practice of Apostolic-, 
times,' and thinks that they have done so ' wisely,' without any authority from the. 
Lord of the Apostles for rejecting one of his ' singular and interesting ' institutions^ 
The Dean had an affection for modern methods of religious substitution in things; 
which he regarded as of secondary consequence, and he could not see how a man's; 
conscience and convictions of duty should bind him to what the Dean could not 
understand as important. Hence, while he acknowledged that he ' ought to be grate- 
ful' to the Baptists, for having cleaved to the Apostolic practice 'almost alone' in 
Western Christendom, it was hard for him to see exactly why they should not ' dis- 
card ' it as well as others did. Great as was his tolerance in thought, when he looked 
at any religious point even through his affections he betrayed a tinge of intolerance. 
His most courteous allowance in such cases was mingled with a touch of scorn for 
what he could not fully comprehend ; therefore, brave as he held the Baptists to be 
for unswerving fidelity to the Bible form of baptism, he saw no need for this con- 
stancy, but candidly said, ' We have altered all that long ago,' without the slightest 
attempt at popular equivocation. , 

Possibly no Baptist writer of our times awakened less asperity in Pedobap- 
tist minds than the late Dr. William R. Williams, yet on this very point no man 



■©12 THE TRUE BAPTIST DOCTRINE. 

"more completely covers the right interpretation of true Baptist conviction. He 

says : 

'We read in the ordinance as the Sovereign bequeathed it, in the yielding 
waters that bury and then restore the loyal disciple, 'the cenotaph of our great Leader, 
the persistent tomb perpetually erected by which he would have his death set forth 
to the end of the world, and his exulting triumph over death, and his jubilant 
entrance into Paradise as well. And if it would be thought temerity for a follower 
of Michael Angelo or of Christopher Wren to pull down the tomb of either of 
these great architects on the plea of substituting a better, is it less temerity to inno- 
vate on the design in the gate of 'his own Church, reared by the Great Architect ? 
Bury us into the tomb he occupied. Plant us into the new emerging life that he 
there displayed, nor think it shame to stand loyally by the ways that he has opened, 
and that none in all the Avorld may better.' 

He deprecates all change from Christ's appointment either in the subject or act 
~of baptism as : 

' A most dangerous assumption of power in the Church, and also a most rash 
ascription of intrinsic and magical efficacy to the outer emblem. The Churches 
early, but most unrighteously, learned to annex not only the remission of sins to the 
ordinance, but the regeneration itself — to attach pardon from Christ and new life from 
the Holy Ghost as sequents to an external rite. Priestly hands and Church lavers 
were thus employed, by an assumption that not one page of Scripture warrants, to 
usurp the prerogatives of God the adopting Father, and Christ the mediating Brother, 
and the Paraclete, the renewing and illumining Teacher.' Lees. Bap. Hist. pp. 82, 83. 

In like manner, as men return to the simplicity of the Lord's Supper, in the 
spirit of the New Testament, for the purely memorial purpose of setting forth 
Christ's death, they come better to understand why Baptists reject the Romish inter- 
pretation that it is a test of love between Christian men, or a bond of spiritual fel- 
lowship in any Bible sense whatever. The more other Christians come to respect 
them for their protest against its abuse, and to recognize them as extending brotherly 
love, and with it acts of Christian brotherhood in the substantial deeds of benevo- 
lence, in the mutual burden-bearing of every-day life, and in that unity of the Holy 
Spirit by which birth from above is attested, rather than in the act of breaking 
bread, where the pure disciple and the hypocrite, the precious and the vile, have in 
all ages eaten the Supper together, and still sit at the same table in all Christian 
Denominations ; the more they challenge universal respect, as the interpreters of 
the one Gospel baptism. 




REV. T. J. COUA.NT. 
REV. HOWARD OSGOOD. 



REV. H. B. HACKETT. 
REV. A. C. KENDRICK. 



CHAPTER XV. 

BIBLE TRANSLATION AND BIBLE SOCIETIES. 

EARLY in the Nineteenth Century, local Bible Societies sprang up in various 
American towns and cities. So far as is known, the first of these was 
formed in Philadelphia, in December, 1808, primarily under the wisdom and zeal 
of Dr. Staughton, who was its first recording secretary and wrote its appeals for aid. 
In February, 1809, a similar society was organized in New York, called the ' Young 
Men's Bible Society,' and on this wise. William Colgate, a young Englishman, 
sacredly cherished a Bible which had been presented to him by his father, which was 
kept in his pew in the First Baptist meeting-house ; but it was stolen, and thinking 
that Bibles must be very scarce or they would not be taken by theft, he conversed 
with others, and they resolved to form a society to meet the want. This society 
comprehended the purpose of translation as well as of circulation, and incorporated 
the following into its Constitution as its defining article : 

' The object of this Society is to distribute the Bible only — and that without 
notes — amongst such persons as may not be able to purchase it ; and also, as far 
as may be practicable, to translate or assist in causing it to be translated into other 
languages.' 

Soon other societies were formed in different places, and the universal want of 
a General Society began to be felt. At length, May 11, 1816, thirty-five local 
societies in different parts of the country sent delegates to a Bible Convention which 
assembled in New York, and organized the American Bible Society for 'The dis- 
semination of the Scriptures in the received versions where they exist, and in the 
most faithful where they may be required.' Most of the local societies either dis- 
banded or were made auxiliary to the General Society. The Baptists became at 
once its earnest and liberal supporters. As early as 1830 it made an appropriation 
of $1,200 for Judson's ' Burman Bible,' through the Baptist Triennial Convention, 
with the full knowledge that he had translated the family of words relating to bap- 
tism by words which meant immerse and immersion, and down to 1835 the Society 
had appropriated $18,500 for the same purpose. The Triennial Convention had 
instructed its missionaries in April, 1833, thus : 

Resolved, That the Board feel it to be their duty to adopt all prudent measures 
to give to the heathen the pure word of God in their own languages, and to furnish 
their missionaries with all the means in their power to make their translation as exact 
a representation of the mind of the Holy Spirit as may be possible. 



S14 THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY. 

1 Resolved, That all the missionaries of the Board who ai*e, or who shall be, 
engaged in translating the Scriptures, be instructed to endeavor, by earnest prayer 
and diligent study, to ascertain the precise meaning of the original text, to express 
that meaning as exactly as the nature of the languages into which they shall translate 
the Bible will permit, and to transfer no words which are capable of being literally 
translated.' 

In 1835 Mr. Pearce asked the Society to aid in printing the ' Bengali New Testa- 
ment,' which was translated upon the same principle as Judson's Bible. The com- 
mittee which considered the application reported as follows : ' That the committee 
do not deem it expedient to recommend an appropriation until the Board settle a prin- 
ciple in relation to the Greek word baptizo? Then the whole subject was referred 
to a committee of seven, who, November 19, 1835, presented the following reports : 

' The Committee to whom was recommitted the determining of a principle upon 
which the American Bible Society will aid in printing and distributing the Bible in 
foreign languages, beg leave to report, 

' That they are of the opinion that it is expedient to withdraw their former 
report on the particular case, and to present the following one on the general 
principle : 

' By the Constitution of the American Bible Society, its Managers are, in the 
circulation of the Holy Scriptures, restricted to such copies as are without note or 
comment, and in the English language, to the version in common use. The design 
of these restrictions clearly seems to have been to simplify and mark out the duties 
of the Society ; so that all the religious denominations of which it is composed 
might harmoniously unite in performing those duties. 

'As the Managers are now called to aid extensively in circulating the Sacred 
Scriptures in languages other than the English, they deem it their duty, in conformity 
with the obvious spirit of their compact, to adopt the following resolution as the 
rule of their conduct in making appropriations for the circulation of the Scriptures 
in all foreign tongues : 

'' Resolved, 1. That in appropriating money for the translating, printing or dis- 
tributing of the Sacred Scriptures in Foreign languages, the Managers feel at liberty 
to encourage only such versions as conform in the principle of their translation to the 
common English version, at least so far as that all the religious denominations repre- 
sented in this Society, can consistently use and circulate said versions in their several 
schools and communities. 

' Resolved, 2. That a copy of the above preamble and resolution be sent to each 
of the Missionary Boards accustomed to receive pecuniary grants from the Society, 
with a request that the same may be transmitted to their respective mission stations, 
where the Scriptures are in process of translation, and also that the several Mission 
Boards be informed that their application for aid must be accompanied with a declara- 
tion that the versions which they propose to circulate are executed in accordance 
with the above resolution. 

Thomas Macauley, Chairman, Vm. H. VanVleck, 

James Milnor, Francis Hall, 

Thomas Dewitt, Thomas Cock.' 

counter report. 

' The subscriber, as a member of the Committee to whom was referred the appli- 
cation of Messrs. Pearce and Yates, for aid in the circulation of the Bengali New 
Testament, begs leave to submit the following considerations : 

'1. The Baptist Board of Foreign Missions have not been under the impression 



BAPTIST LOYALTY TO TRUTH. SIS 

that the American Bible Society was organized upon the central principle that baptizo 
and its cognates were never to be translated, but always transferred, in all versions 
of the Scriptures patronized by them. Had this principle been candidly stated and 
uniformly acted upon by the Society in the appropriation of its funds for foreign 
distribution, the Baptists never could have been guilty of the folly or duplicity of 
soliciting aid for translations made by their missionaries. 

' 2. As there is now a large balance in the treasury of the American Bible 
Society, as many liberal bequests and donations have been made by Baptists, and as 
these were made in the full confidence that the Society could constitutionally assist 
their own denomination, as well as the other evangelical denominations comprising 
the Institution, in giving the Bible to the heathen world, therefore, 

' Resoboed, That $- be appropriated and paid to the Baptist General Con- 
vention of the United States for Foreign Missions, to aid them in the work of sup- 
plying the perishing millions of the East with the Sacred Scriptures. 

Spencek H. Cone.' 

It must stand to the everlasting honor of the Triennial Convention that they 
regarded the Author of the Bible as the only being to be consulted in this matter. 
They disallowed any voice to the translator in making his translation, but virtually 
said to him : ' The parchment which you hold in your hand is God's word, all that 
you have to do is to re-utter the Divine voice. The right of Jehovah to a hearing as 
he will is the only consideration in this case. You are to inquire of him by earnest 
prayer, you are to use the most diligent study to ascertain the precise meaning of 
the original text, then you are to make your translation as exact a representation of 
the mind of the Holy Spirit as may be possible, so far as the nature of the language 
into which you translate will permit.' In contrast with this, the Bible Society said : 
5 Y"ou are to take the common English version and conform your version to the 
principle on which it was made, so that all " denominations represented in this 
Society can use it in their schools and communities." ' A version, and that quite 
imperfect, was to be made the standard by which all versions should be made, and 
the voice of all the denominations in the Society was to be consulted instead of 
the mind of the Holy Spirit. Such an untenable position settled the question of 
further co-operation with the Society in the making and circulation of foreign ver- 
sions, for a more dangerous position could not be taken. Up to that time, including 
a large legacy which John F. Marsh had made, the Baptists had contributed to the 
treasury of the Bible Society at least $170,000, and had received for their missionary 
versions less than $30,000. On May 12, 1836, the Bible Society approved the atti- 
tude of its Board, and $5,000 was voted for the versions made by the Baptist mis- 
sionaries to be used on the new principle which had been adopted. The Baptist 
members of the Board presented a clear, calm and dignified Protest, but were not 
allowed even to read it to the Board. Amongst many other grave considerations 
they submitted these : ' The Baptists cannot, consistently with their religious prin- 
ciples, in any case where they are permitted to choose, consent to use or circulate 
any version in which any important portion of divine truth is concealed or obscured, 
either by non-translation or by ambiguity of expression. . . . This resolution exposes 



S16 DR. LEAVITTS POSITION. 

the Society, almost unavoidably, to the charge or suspicion of sectarian motives. 
JFor, without pretending, in the least, to impeach the accuracy of the versions against 
which it is directed, the principal reason offered by its advocates when urging its 
adoption was, " That Pedobaptists might have an opportunity of prosecuting their 
missionary operations without let or hinderance, where the translations of the Bap- 
tists are in circulation." And surely, a version that purposely withholds the truth, 
either by non-translation or by ambiguity of expression, for the sake of accommo- 
dating Pedobaptists, is as really sectarian as one that adds to the truth from the same 
motive. . . . The imperfection and injustice of the resolution are strikingly man- 
ifested in the continued circulation of Roman Catholic versions, which are neither 
conformed in the principle of their translation to the common English version, nor 
can they be consistently used by the different denominations represented in the 
American Bible Society. They are characterized by the numerous absurd and 
heretical dogmas of the Catholic sect, and yet the rule in question cordially approves 
of their extensive distribution, while the translations of pious, faithful and learned 
Baptist ministers are rejected.' 

The Board of the Triennial Convention met at Hartford, Conn., on the 27th of 
April, 1836, and at once ' respectfully informed ' the Board of the American Bible 
Society that they could not ' consistently and conscientiously comply with the con- 
ditions ' on which their appropriation was made, and that they could not, ' therefore, 
accept the sum appropriated.' Here, then, the sharp issue was drawn between the 
question of denominational ' use ' and ' the mind of the Holy Spirit,' in the holy 
work of Bible translation. Not only was the Baptist position sustained, but the 
manly and Christian stand taken by its representatives in the Board was approved 
by our Churches, and an almost unanimous determination was reached to support 
the faithful versions made by our missionaries. Action was taken in Churches, 
associations and conventions, and an almost universal demand was made for a new 
Bible Society. Powerful pens were also wielded outside the Baptist body to defend 
their course, amongst them that of the late Joshua Leavitt, a distinguished Congre- 
gationalist, who said : 

' The Baptist Board had instructed their missionaries on the subject, " to make 
their translations as exact a representation of the mind of the Holy Spirit as may 
be possible ;" and "to transfer wo words which are capable of being literally trans- 
lated." This instruction was a transcript of the principle which underlies the Bap- 
tist Churches, to wit, in settled and conscientious belief that the word baptizo means 
" immerse " and nothing else. It was plainly impossible that Baptist missionaries 
should honestly translate in any other way. Then the debate turned, in effect, upon 
the question whether the Bible Society should recognize such men as Judson and his 
associates as trustworthy translators of the word of God for a people who had been 
taught the Gospel by them, and for whose use there was, and could be, no other ver- 
sion. . . . The effect of the resolution was to make the Bible Society, in its actual 
administration, a Pedobaptist or sectarian institution. It was a virtual exclusion of 
the Baptists from their just rights as the equal associates of their brethren by the 
solemn compact of the constitution. It left them no alternative but to withdraw, 



AMEBIC AN AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY. 517 

and take measures of their own to supply the millions of Burma with the Script- 
ures in the only version which could be had, and the only one which they would 
receive. It was a public exemplification of bad faith in adherence to the constitu- 
tion of a religious benevolent society. That it attracted so little public attention at 
the time must be attributed to the general absorption of the public mind with other 
pursuits and questions and, more than all, to the fact that it was a minority which 
suffered injustice, while a large majority were more gratified than otherwise at their 
discomfiture. But the greatest injury was done to the cause of Christian union and 
to the unity of the Brotestant hosts in the conflict with Borne. And this evil is 
now just about to develop itself in its full extent. The Bible Society, in its original 
construction, and by its natural and proper influence, ought to be able to present 
itself before all the world as the representative and exponent of the Brotestautism 
of this nation, instead of which it is only the instrument of sectarian exclusiveness 
and injustice. One of the largest, most zealous and evangelical and highly pro- 
gressive Brotestant bodies is cut off and set aside, and the Society stands before the 
world as a one-sided thing, and capable of persistent injustice in favor of a denom- 
inational dogma. 

' This publication is made under the influence of a strong belief of the impera- 
tive necessity which now presses upon us to right this wrong, that we may be pre- 
pared for the grand enterprise, the earnest efforts, the glorious results for the king- 
dom of Christ, which are just opening before us. We must close up our ranks, we 
must reunite all hearts and all hands, in the only way possible, by falling back upon 
the original constitution of the Society, in letter and spirit, by the simple repeal 
of the resolution.' 

Man}- Baptists from various parts of the country attended the annual meeting 
of the Bible Society in New York, on the 12th of May, 1S36, and when it deliberately 
adopted the policy of the board as its own permanent plan, about 120 of these held 
a meeting for deliberation on [he 13th, in the Oliver Street Baptist meeting-house, 
with Dr. Nathaniel Kendrick in the chair. The Baptist Board of Foreign Missions, 
which met at Hartford, April 27th, had anticipated the possible result, and resolved 
that in this event it would ' be the duty of the Baptist denomination in the United 
States to form a distinct organization for Bible translation and distribution in foreign 
tongues,' and had resolved on the need of a Convention of Churches, at Bhiladel- 
phia, in April, 1837, ' to adopt such measures as circumstances, in the providence of 
God may require.' But the meeting in Oliver Street thought it wise to forma new 
Bible Society at once, and on that day organized the American and Foreign Bible 
Society provisionally, subject to the decision of the Convention to be held in Bhila- 
delphia. This society was formed ' to promote a wider circulation of the Holy 
Scriptures, in the most faithful versions that can be procured.' In three months it 
sent §13,000 for the circulation of Asiatic Scriptures, and moved forward with great 
enthusiasm. 

After a vear's deliberation the great Bible Convention met in the meeting'- 
house of the First Baptist Church, Bhiladelphia, April 26th, 1837. It consisted of 
390 members, sent from Churches, Associations, State Conventions, Education Socie- 
ties and other bodies, in twenty-three States and in the District of Columbia. Rev. 
Charles G. Sommers, Lucius Bolles and Jonathan Going, the committee on 'ere- 



518 PHILADELPHIA BIBLE CONVENTION. 

dentials.' reported that ' in nearly all the letters and minutes where particular instruc- 
tions are given to the delegates, your committee find a very decided sentiment in 
favor of a distinct and unfettered organization for Bible translation and distribu- 
tion.' The official record says that the business of the Convention was 'to consider 
and decide upon the duty of the denomination, in existing circumstances, respecting 
the translation and distribution of the sacred Scriptures. ' Rufus Babcock, of 
Pennsylvania, was chosen president of the body ; with Abiel Sherwood, of Georgia, 
and Baron Stow, of Massachusetts, as secretaries. Amongst its members there 
were present : From Maine, John S. Maginnis ; New Hampshire, E. E. Cum- 
mings ; Vermont, Elijah Hutchinson ; Massachusetts, George B, Ide, Heman Lin- 
coln, Daniel Sharp, Win. Hague and James D. Knowles ; and from Rhode Island, 
Francis "Wayland, David Benedict and John Blain. Connecticut sent James L. 
Hodge, Rollin H. Neale, Irah Chase and Lucius Bolles. From New York we have 
Charles G. Sommers, Wm. Colgate, Edward Kingsford, Alexander M. Beebee, 
Daniel Haskall, Nathaniel Kendrick, John Peck, Wm. R. Williams, Wm. Parkin- 
son, Diincan Dunbar, Spencer H. Cone, John Dowling and B. T. Welch. New 
Jersey was represented by Samuel Aaron, Thomas Swaim, Daniel Dodge, Peter P. 
Runyon, Simon J. Drake, M. J. Rhees and Charles J. Hopkins. Pennsylvania 
sent Horatio G. Jones, Joseph Taylor, Wm. T. Brantly, J. H. Kennard, J. M. Lin- 
nard, Wm. Shadrach, A. D. Gillette and Rufus Babcock. Then from Maryland 
we find Wm. Crane and Stephen P. Hill ; and from Virginia, Thomas Hume, J. 
B. Taylor, J. B. Jeter and Thomas D. Toy. These were there, with others of equal 
weight of character and name. 

When such momentous issues were pending, our fathers found themselves differ- 
ing widely in opinion. Some thought a new Bible Society indispensable ; others dep- 
recated such a step ; some wished to confine the work of the new society to foreign 
versions ; others thought not only that its work should be unrestricted as to field, 
but that consistency and fidelity to God required it to apply to the English and all 
other versions the principle which was to be applied to versions in heathen lands, 
thus making it faithful to God's truth for all lands. The discussion ran through 
three days, and was participated in by the ablest minds of the denomination, being 
specially keen, searching and thorough. Professor Knowles says : 

' Much feeling was occasionally exhibited, and some undesirable remarks were 
made. But, with little exception, an excellent spirit reigned throughout the meet- 
ing. It was, we believe, the largest and most intelligent assembly of Baptist minis- 
ters and laymen that has ever been held. There was a display of talent, eloquence 
and piety which, we venture to say, no other ecclesiastical body in our country 
could surpass. Our own estimate of the ability and sound principles of our brethren 
was greatly elevated. We saw, too, increased evidence that our Churches were 
firmly united. While there was an independence of opinion which was worthy of 
Christians and freemen, there was a kind spirit of conciliation. Each man who 
spoke declared his views with entire frankness ; but when the question was taken, 
the vast body of delegates voted almost in solid column. They all, we believe, with 



THIS CONVENTION'S WORK. SI 9 

a few exceptions, are satisfied with the results of the meeting as far as regards the 
present position of the society. The question respecting the range of its opera- 
tions remains to be decided. We hope that it will be discussed in a calm and fraternal 
spirit. Let each man be willing to hear his brother's opinion, and to yield his own 
wishes to those of the majority. We see no reason why any one should be pertina- 
cious. If it should be determined to give to the society an unrestricted range, no 
man will be obliged to sustain it unless he choose. He who may still prefer to 
send his money to the American Bible Society can do so. Let us maintain peace 
among ourselves. Our own union is of more importance than any particular meas- 
ures which we could adopt. No benefits which would ensue from the operations of 
any society would compensate for the loss of harmony in our Churches.' 

So far the words of Prof. Knowles. The final decisions of this great Conven- 
tion are found in the following resolutions, which it adopted ' almost in solid 
column,' namely : 

' 1. Resolved, That under existing circumstances it is the indispensable duty of 
the Baptist denomination in the United States to organize a distinct society for the 
purpose of aiding in the translation, printing and circulation of the sacred Scriptures. 

' 2. Resolved, That this organization be known by the name of the American 
and Foreign Bible Society. • 

' 3. Resolved, That the society confine its efforts during the ensuing year to the 
circulation of the Word of God in foreign tongues. 

' 4. Resolved, That the Baptist denomination in the United States be affection- 
tionately requested to send to the Society, at its annual meeting during the last week 
in April, 1838, their views as to the duty of the Society to engage in the work of 
home distribution. 

' 5. Resolved. That a committee of one from each State and district repre- 
sented in this convention be appointed to draft a constitution and nominate a board 
of officers for the ensuing year.' 

A constitution was then adopted and officers chosen by the Convention itself. 
It elected Spencer H. Cone for President, Charles G. Sommers for Corresponding 
Secretary, William Colgate for Treasurer and John AVest for Recording Secretary ; 
together with thirty-six managers, who, according to the eighth article of the consti- 
tution, were 'brethren in good standing in Baptist Churches.' 

The convention also instructed its officers to issue a circular to the Baptist 
Churches throughout the United States, commending its work to their co-operation 
and confidence, and especially soliciting them to send to the new Society an expres- 
sion of their wishes as to its duty in the matter of home circulation. This request 
was very generally complied with, and so earnest was the wish to make it a ' society 
for the world,' that at its annual meeting in 1838 its constitution was so amended as 
to read : ' It shall be the object of this Society to aid in the wider circulation of the 
Holy Scriptures in all lands.' Thus the Baptists took the high and holy ground 
that they were called to conserve fidelity to God in translating the Bible, and that 
if they failed to do this on principle, they would fail to honor him altogether in this 
matter ; because the Society which they had founded was the only Bible organiza- 
tion then established which had no fellowship with compromises in Bible translation. 



S20 THE QUESTION OF REVISION. 

From the first, many in the new Society,, led by Dr. Cone, desired to proceed 
at once to a revision of the English Scriptures, under the guidance of the principles 
applied to the Asiatic versions made by the Baptist missionaries. But in deference 
to the opposition of some who approved of the Society in all other respects, at its 
annual meeting in 1838 it ' Resolved, That in the distribution of the Scriptures in 
the English language, they will use the commonly received version until otherwise 
directed by the Society.' Whatever difference of opinion existed amongst the 
founders of that Society about the immediate expediency of applying the princi- 
ple of its constitution to the English version, its ultimate application became but a 
question of time, and this action was postponed for fourteen years. Meanwhile, 
this measure was pressed in various directions, in addresses at its anniversaries, in 
essays published by various persons, and in the Society's correspondence. In 184-2 
Rev. Messrs. David Bernard and Samuel Aaron issued a very able treatise on the 
need of ' Revising and Amending King James' Yersion of the Holy Scriptures.' 
They also procured and published in that year, through the publishing house of J. 
B. Lippincott, of Philadelphia, a revised version of the Old and New Testaments, 
'carefully revised and amended by several Biblical scholars.' This they say they 
did ' in accordance with the advice of many distinguished brethren, the services of 
a number of professors, some of whom rank among the first in our country for 
their knowledge of the original languages and Biblical interpretation and criticism, 
have been secured to prepare this work.' Amongst these were the late Prof. 
Whiting, Prof. A. C. Kendrick and other leading scholars who still live and have 
labored on other revisions. 

The American and Foreign Bible Society held its annual meeting in New York 
May 11th, 1849, and, on the motion of Hon. Isaac Davis, of Massachusetts, after 
considerable discussion, it was ' Resolved, That the restriction laid by the Society 
upon the Board of Managers in 1838, " to use only the commonly received version 
in the distribution of the Scriptures in the English language," be removed.' This 
restriction being removed, the new board referred the question of revision to a com- 
mittee of five. After long consideration that committee presented three reports : 
one with three signatures and two minority reports. The third, from the pen of 
Warren Carter, Esq., was long and labored as an argument against altering the 
common version at all. In January, 1850, the majority report was unanimously 
adopted in these words : 

'Resolved, That, in the opinion of this board, the sacred Scriptures of the Old 
and New Testament ought to be faithfully and accurately translated into every 
living language. 

' Resolved, That wherever, in versions now in use, known and obvious errors 
exist, and wherever the meaning of the original is concealed or obscured, suitable 
measures ought to be prosecuted to correct those versions, so as to render the truth 
clear and intelligible to the ordinary reader. 

Resolved, That, in regard to the expediency of this board undertaking 



WARM CONTROVERSY. 521 

the correction of the English version, a decided difference of opinion exists, 
and, therefore, that it be judged most prudent to await the instructions of the 
Society.' 

On the publication of these resolutions the greatest excitement spread through 
the denomination. Most of its journals were flooded with communications, pre 
and con, sermons were preached in a number of pulpits denouncing the movement, 
and public meetings were held in several cities to the same end, notable amongst them 
one at the Oliver Street Church, in ]N~ew York, April 4th, 1850. Tins feeling was 
greatly increased by the two following facts : Mr. Carter, an intelligent layman, but 
neither a scholar nor an able thinker, having submitted a learned and elaborate paper 
as his minority report, which occupied an hour in the reading, and believing that it 
was inspired by an astute author in ]S~ew York who had opposed the Society from 
the first, and was then a member of the Board of the American Bible Society, Dr. 
Cone and "William H. Wyckoff, President and Secretary of the American and For- 
eigh Bible Society, published a pamphlet over their names in defense of the action 
of the board, under the title, ' The Bible Translated.' The second fact arose from 
the demand of Mr. Carter that those in favor of a revision of the English Script- 
ures should issue, in the form of a small edition of the New Testament, a specimen 
of the character of the emendations which they desired, in regard to obsolete words, 
to words and phrases that failed to express the meaning of the original Greek, or 
the addition of words by the translators, errors in grammar, profane expressions and 
sectarian renderings. Deacon William Colgate, the Treasurer, said that he approved 
of this suggestion, and that if Brethren Cone and Wyckoff would procure and issue 
such an edition as a personal enterprise, he, as a friend of revision, would personally 
pay the cost of the plates and printing. This was done, and in their preface they 
stated that by the aid of ' eminent scholars,' who had ' kindly co-operated and given 
their hearty approval to the proposed corrections,' they submitted their work, not 
for acceptance by the Society, but as a specimen of some changes which might be 
properly made, and that the plates would be presented to the Society if they were 
desired. This was sufficient to fan the fire to a huge flame ; much stormy and un- 
called for severity was invoked, and a large attendance was called for at the annual 
meeting to 'rebuke this metropolitan power' and crush the movement forever. 

Men of the highest ability took sides and published their views, some demand- 
ing revision at once, others admitting its necessity but hesitating as to what might 
be the proper method to procure it, and still others full of fiery denunciation of 
Cone, Wyckoff and Colgate, and their sympathizers ; as if they were guilty of the 
basest crime for desiring as good a version for the English speaking people as the 
Baptists were giving to the East Indians. Many others also talked as much at random 
as if they feared that the book which they hinted had come down from heaven in about 
its present shape, printed and bound, was now to be taken from them by force. From 
the abundant material before the writer a large volume might be submitted of the 



S22 DR. HACKETT ON REVISION. 

sayings and doings of many persons, of whom some are still living, and some have 
gone to their account with God ; but as no good end can be secured at present by 
their reproduction they are passed in silence. It is much more grateful to refer to 
those more calm and thoughtful minds who stood unmoved in the storm, and, although 
they did not at that time see their way clear to aid the work of revision, yet spoke 
in a manner worthy of themselves as men of God in handling a great and grave sub- 
ject, worthy of the Master whom they served, showing their consistency as defenders 
of our missionary versions. Pre-eminent amongst these was the late Dr. Hackett, 
who thus expressed himself May 2d, 1850 : 

'It is admitted that the received English version of the Scriptures is suscepti- 
ble of improvement. During the more than 200 years which have passed since 
it was made, our means for the explanation, both of the text and the subjects of the 
Bible, have been greatly increased. The original languages in which it was written 
have continued to occupy the attention of scholars, and are now more perfectly 
understood. Much light has been thrown upon the meaning of words. Many of 
them are seen to have been incorrectly defined, and many more to have been ren- 
dered with less precision than is now attainable. The various collateral branches of 
knowledge have been advanced to a more perfect state. History, geography, antiq- 
uities, the monuments and customs of the countries where the sacred writers lived, 
and where the scenes which they describe took place, have been investigated with 
untiring zeal, and have yielded, at length, results which afford advantages to the 
translator of the Scriptures at the present day, which no preceding age has enjoyed. 
It is eminently desirable that we should have in our language a translation of the 
Bible conformed to the present state of critical learning.' 

The Society met for its thirteenth anniversary in New York on the morning of 
May 22d, 1850. The crowd of life members, life directors and other delegates was 
very large, and the excitement rose as high as it well could. From the first 
it was manifest that calm, deliberate discussion and conference were not to be had, 
but that measures adverse to all revision were to be carried with a high hand. It 
had been customary to elect officers and managers before the public services ; but, 
before this could be done Rev. Isaac Westcott moved : ' That this Society, in the issues 
and circulation of the English Scriptures, be restricted to the commonly received 
version, without note or comment ; ' and further moved that, as probably all minds 
were made up on the question, the vote should be taken without debate. Determined 
resistance to this summary process secured the postponement of the question to the 
afternoon, and other business was attended to. At that session each speaker was 
confined to fifteen minutes. Then in the heat of the Society it so far forgot the object 
of its organization as to vote down by an overwhelming majority the very principle 
on which it was organized. In the hope that, if revision could not be entertained, 
at least a great principle might be conserved as a general basis of agreement 
thereafter, the revisionists, on consultation, submitted the following : ' Resolved, 
That it is the duty of the Society to circulate the sacred Scriptures in the most 
faithful versions that can be procured.' "When the Society had rejected this, and 
thus stultified itself, and denied not only its paternity but its right to exist by reject- 



REVISION REJECTED. 523 

ing that fundamental principle, it was seen at a glance that all hope of its unity was 
gone. Yet, as a last hope that it might be saved, the following conciliatory resolu- 
tion was submitted, but was not even entertained, namely : 

' Whe? , eas, Numerous criticisms of the learned of all denominations of Chris- 
tians demonstrate the susceptibility of many improvements in the commonly received 
version of the English Scriptures ; and whereas, it is deemed inexpedient for one 
denomination of Christians alone to attempt these improvements, provided the co- 
operation of others can be secured ; therefore 

Resolved, That a committee of pious, faithful, and learned men, in the 

United States of America or elsewhere, be appointed for the purpose of opening a 
correspondence with the Christian and learned world, on all points necessarily 
involved in the question of revising the English Scriptures ; that said committee be 
requested to present to the Society at the next annual meeting a report of their 
investigations and correspondence, with a statement of their views as to what revision 
of the English Scriptures it would be proper to make, if any ; that until such report 
and statement shall have been acted upon by the Society the Board of Managers 
shall be restricted in their English issues to the commonly received version ; and 
that all necessary expenses attendant upon this correspondence and investigation be 
paid by the Society.' 

On the 23d, the following, offered by Rev. Dr. Turnbull, of Connecticut, was 
adopted : 

Resolved, That it is not the province and duty of the American and Foreign 
Bible Society to attempt, on their own part, or procure from others, a revision of 
the commonly received English version of the Scriptures.' 

This action was followed by the election of the officers and the board by ballot, 
when Dr. Cone was re-elected President ; but the Secretary, "William H. Wyckoff, 
and the venerable Deacon Colgate, were proscribed, together with ten of the old 
managers, all known revisionists. No person then present can wish to witness 
another such scene in a Baptist body to the close of life. Dr. Cone, at that time in 
his sixty-sixth year, rose like a patriarch, his hair as white as snow. As soon as the 
seething multitude in the Mulberry Street Tabernacle could be stilled, he said, with 
a stifled and almost choked utterance : ' Brethren, I believe my work in this Society 
is done. Allow me to tender you my resignation. I did not withdraw my name in 
advance, because of the seeming egotism of such a step. I thank you, my breth- 
ren, for the kindly manner in which you have been pleased to tender me once more 
the office of President of your Society. But I cannot serve you longer. I am 
crushed.' The Society at first refused to receive his resignation, but, remaining 
firm in his purpose, it was accepted. When Messrs. Cone, Colgate and "Wyckoff 
rose to leave the house in company, Dr. Cone invited Dr. Sommers, the first Vice- 
President, to the chair, remarking that God had a work for him to do which he 
was not permitted to do in that Society ; and bowing, like a prince in Israel un- 
crowned for his fidelity, he said, amid the sobbing of the audience : ' I bid you, my 
brethren, an affectionate farewell as President of a Society that I have loved, which 

36 



524 



SPENCER H. CONE, 



has cost me money, with much labor, prayer and tears. I hope that God will direct 
your future course in mercy ; that we may do as much good as such creatures as we 
are able to accomplish. May the Lord Jesus bless you all.' Dr. Bartholomew T. 
Welch was chosen President, and Dr. Cutting Secretary of the American and For- 
eign Bible Society ; then the body adjourned. 

Spencer H. Cone, D.D., was, by nature, a man of mark, and would have been 
a leader in any sphere of life. He was born at Princeton, N. J., April 13, 1785. 
His father and mother were members of the Hopewell Baptist Church. His father 

was high-spirited and fearless, 
noted for his gentlemanly and 
finished manners. He was an 
unflinching Whig, and fought 
with great bravery in the Rev- 
olution. Mrs. Cone was the 
daughter of Col. Joab Hough- 
ton. She possessed a vigorous 
intellect, great personal beauty, 
and an indomitable moral cour- 
age. Late in life, Dr. Cone loved 
to speak of the earnest and en- 
lightened piety of his parents. 
When about fifty years of age 
he said in a sermon : ' My mother 
was baptized when I was a few 
months old, and soon after her 
baptism, as I was sleeping on her 
lap, she was much drawn out in 
prayer for her babe and supposed 
she received an answer, with the 
assurance that the child should 
live to preach the Gospel of 
Christ. The assurance never left her; and it induced her to make the most 
persevering efforts to send me to Princeton — a course, at first, much against my 
father's will. This she told me after my conversion ; it had been a comfort to 
her in the darkest hour of domestic trial ; for she had never doubted that her 
hope would be sooner or later fulfilled.' At the age of twelve he entered Prince- 
ton College as a Freshman, but at fourteen he was obliged to leave, when in his 
Sophomore year, in consequence of the mental derangement of his father and the 
reduction of the family to a penniless condition ; they went through a hard 
struggle for many years. Yet the lad of fourteen took upon him the support of 
his father and mother, four sisters and a younger brother, and never lost heart or 




SPENCER H. CONE, D.D. 



MR. CONE'S CONVERSION. S2S 

hope. He spent seven years as a teacher, first in the Bordentown Academy, 
having charge of the Latin and Greek department, and then he became assistant 
in the Philadelphia Academy under Dr. Abercrombie. 

Prompted largely by the desire to support his mother and sisters more liberally, 
he next devoted seven years to theatrical life. He says : ' In a moment of despera- 
tion I adopted the profession of an actor. It was inimical to the wishes of my 
mother, and in direct opposition to my own feelings and principles. But it was the 
only way by which I had a hope of extricating myself from my pecuniary embar- 
rassments.' He played chiefly in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Alexandria, and suc- 
ceeded much better than he expected, but at times had serious misgivings about the 
morality of his associations and was greatly troubled about his personal salvation. 
In 1813 he left the stage, to take charge of the books of the ' Baltimore American/ 
A year later, he became one of the proprietors and conductors of the ' Baltimore 
Whig,' a paper devoted to the politics of Jefferson and Madison. At that moment 
the country had come to war with England, and he went to the field as captain of 
the Baltimore Artillery Company, under William Pinckney. He stood bravely at 
his post during the battles at Northpoint, Bladensburg and Baltimore, when shells 
tore up the earth at his feet and mangled his men at his side. During the war he 
married, intending to spend his time in secular life, but neglected the house of God. 
One day his eye dropped upon an advertisement of a sale of books, which he attended, 
and he bought the works of John Newton. On reading the ' Life of Newton,' his 
mind was deeply affected ; he passed through agony of soul on account of his sins, 
which, for a time, disqualified him for business. His young wife thought him 
deranged, and having sought relief in various ways, at last he flew to the Bible for 
direction. He says : 

: One evening after the family had all retired, I went up into a vacant garret 
and walked backwards and forwards in great agony of mind. I kneeled down, the 
instance of Hezekiah occurred to me, like him I turned my face to the wall and cried 
for mercy. An answer seemed to be vouchsafed in an impression that just as many 
years as I had passed in rebellion against God, so many years I must now endure, 
before deliverance could be granted. I clasped my hands and cried out, " Yes, dear 
Lord, a thousand years of such anguish as I now feel, if I may only be saved at 
last." ... I felt that as a sinner I was condemned and justly exposed to immediate 
and everlasting destruction. I saw distinctly that in Christ alone 1 must be saved, if 
saved at all ; and the view I had at that moment of Christ's method of saving sin- 
ners, I do still most heartily entertain after thirty years' experience of his love.' 

Not long after this he began to preach in Washington, and so amazing was his 
popularity that in 1815-16 he was elected Chaplain to Congress. For a time he was 
pastor at Alexandria, Va., when he became assistant pastor in Oliver Street, New 
York, where he rose to the highest distinction as a preacher. The death of its min- 
ister, Kev. John Williams, left him sole pastor of that Church for about eighteen 
years, when he accepted the pastorate of the First Baptist Church, New York. 



S2<3 HIS UNFLINCHING FIDELITY. 

For about forty years lie was a leader in Home and Foreign mission work, and in 
the great modern movement for a purely translated Bible. In establishing our mis- 
sions, many pleaded for the living teacher and cared little for the faithfully trans- 
lated Bible, but he sympathized with Mr. Thomas, who, in a moment of heart-sorrow, 
exclaimed : ' If I had £100,000 I would give it all for a Bengali Bible.' He did 
much for the cause of education, but never took much .interest in the scheme which 
associated Columbia College with the missionary field. In a letter to Dr. Bolles 
dated December 27, 1830, he wrote : 

' The value of education I certainly appreciate, and think a preacher of the Gos- 
^pel cannot know too much, although it sometimes unhappily occurs, to use the lan- 
guage of L. Richmond, that Christ is crucified in the pulpit between the classics and 
mathematics. Those missionaries destined, like Judson, to translate the word of 
'Cod should be ripe scholars before this branch of their work is performed ; but 1 
am still of opinion that the learning of Dr. Gill himself would have aided him but 
little had he been a missionary to our American Indians.' 

He was elected President of the Triennial Convention in 1832, and continued 
to fill that chair till 1811, when he declined a re-election. He had much to do with 
adjusting the working plans, first of the Triennial Convention and then of the Mis- 
sionary Union. "When the disruption took place between the Southern and Northern 
Baptists, in 1845, no one contributed more to overcome the friction and difficul- 
ties which were engendered by the new state of things and in forming the new 
constitution. Dr. Stow says : 

k Concessions were made on all sides ; but it was plain to all that the greatest 
was made by Mr. Cone. The next day the constitution was reported as the unan- 
imous product of the committee. Mr. Cone made the requisite explanations, and 
defended every article and every provision as earnestly as if the entire instrument 
had been his own favorite offspring. The committee, knowing his preference for 
something different, were filled with admiration at the Christian magnanimity which 
he there exhibited. I believe he never altered his opinion that something else would 
have been better, but I never knew of his uttering a syllable to the disparagement 
of the constitution to whose unanimous adoption he contributed more largely than 
any other man.' 

As a moderator, as an orator, as a Christian gentleman, he was of the highest 
order ; he knew nothing of personal bitterness ; he read human nature at a glance, 
and was one of the noblest and best abused men of his day. Like his brethen, he 
believed that the word ' baptize ' in the Bible meant to immerse and that it was his 
duty to God so to preach it ; but, unlike them, he believed that if it was his duty so 
to preach it, it was as clearly his duty so to print it ; and therefor many accounted 
him a sinner above all who dwelt in Jerusalem. Of course, as is usual in all similar 
cases of detraction heaven has hallowed his memory, for his life was moved by the 
very highest and purest motives. 

On May 27th and 31st 1850, twenty-four revisionists met in the parlor of Deacon 
Colgate's house, No. 128 Chambers Street, to take into consideration what present 



THE AMERICAN BIBLE UNION. 527 

duty demanded at their hands. They were : Spencer H. Cone, Stephen Kemington, 
Herman J. Eddy, Thomas Armitage, ¥m. S. Clapp, S. S. Eelyea, Henry P. See, 
A. C. Wheat, ¥m. Colgate, John B. Wells, Wm. D. Murphy, Jas. H. Townsend, 
Sylvester Pier, Jas. B. Colgate, Alex. McDonald, Geo. W. Abbe, Jas. Farquharson, 
and E. S. Whitney, of New York city ; John Richardson, of Maine ; Samuel B. 
Kelly and Win. H. Wykcoff, of Brooklyn ; E. Gilbert, Lewis Bedell and James 
Edmunds, from the interior of New York. Dr. Cone presided, E. S. Whitney served 
as secretary, and Deacon Colgate led in prayer. For a time this company bowed 
before God in silence, then this man of God poured out one of the most tender 
and earnest petitions before the throne of grace that can well be conceived. T. 
Armitage offered the following, which, after full discussion, were adopted : 

'• Whereas, The word and will of God, as conveyed in the inspired originals of 
the Old and New Testaments, are the only infallible standards of faith and practice, 
and therefore it is of unspeakable importance that the sacred Scriptures should be 
faithfully and accurately translated into every living language ; and, 

' Whereas, A Bible Society is bound by imperative duty to employ all the 
means in its power to insure that the books which it circulates as the revealed will 
of God to man, should be as free from error and obscurity as possible ; and, 

' Whereas, There is not now any general Bible Society in the country which 
has not more or less restricted itself by its own enactments from the discharge of this 
duty ; therefore, 

'■Resolved. That it is our duty to form a voluntary association for the purpose 
of procuring and circulating the most faithful version of the sacred Scriptures in all 
languages. 

'•Resolved. That in such an association we will welcome all persons to co-operate 
with us, who embrace the principles upon which we propose to organize, without 
regard to their denominational principles in other respects.' 

On the 10th of June, 1850, a very large meeting was held at the Baptist Tab- 
ernacle in Mulberry Street, New York, at which the American Bible Union was 
organized, under a constitution which was then adopted, and an address explaining 
its purposes was given to the public. Dr. Cone was elected President of the Union, 
Wm. H. Wyckoff, Corresponding Secretary; Deacon Colgate, Treasurer ; E.S.Whit- 
ney, Recording Secretary, and Sylvester Pier, Auditor, together with a board of 
twenty-four managers. The second article of the constitution defined the object of 
the Union thus : 

' Its object shall be to procure and circulate the most faithful versions of the 
sacred Scriptures in all languages throughout the world.' 

The address gave the broad aims of the Society more fully, and, among other 
things, said : 

' The more accurately a version is brought to the true standard, the more accu- 
rately will it express the mind and will of God. And this is the real foundation of 
the sacredness of the Bible. Any regard for it founded upon the defects or faults 
of translation is superstition. In the consideration of this subject some have endeav- 
ored to poise the whole question of revision upon the retention or displacement of 



S28 BIBLE REVISION COMMENCED. 

the word " baptize." But this does great injustice to our views and aims. For 
although we insist upon the observance of a uniform principle in the full and faith- 
ful translation of God's Word, so as to express in plain English, without ambiguity 
or vagueness, the exact meaning of baptizo, as well as of all other words relating to 
the Christian ordinances, yet this is but one of numerous errors, which, in our esti- 
mation, demand correction. And such are our views and principles in the prosecu- 
tion of this work that, if there were no such word as " baptize " or baptizo in the 
Scriptures, the necessity of revising our English version would appear to us no less 
real and imperative.' 

"While many men of learning and nerve espoused the movement, a storm of 
opposition was raised against it from one end of the land to the other. It expressed 
itself chiefly in harsh words, ridicule, denunciation, appeals to ignorance, prejudice 
and ill temper, with now and then an attempt at scholarly refutation in a spirit much 
more worthy of the subject itself and the respective writers. Every consideration 
was presented on the subject but the main thought : that the Author of the in- 
spired originals had the infinite right to a hearing, and that man was in duty bound 
to listen to his utterances, all human preference or expediency to the contrary not- 
withstanding. After considerable correspondence with scholars in this country and in 
.Europe, the following general rules for the direction of translators and revisers were 
adopted, and many scholars on both sides of the Atlantic commenced their work on 
a preliminary revision of the New Testament. 

Dr. Conant proceeded with the revision of the English Old Testament, aided 
in the Hebrew text by Dr. Rodiger, of Halle, Germany. 

The following were the general rules of the Union : 

'1. The exact meaning of the inspired text, as that text expressed it to those 
who understood the original Scriptures at the time they were first written, must be 
translated by corresponding words and phrases, so far as they can be found in the 
vernacular tongue of those for whom the version is designed, with the least possible 
obscurity or indefiniteness. 

' 2. Whenever there is a version in common use it shall be made the basis of 
revision, and all unnecessary interference with the established phraseology shall be 
avoided, and only such alteration shall be made as the exact meaning of the inspired 
text and the existing state of the language may require. 

' 3. Translations or revisions of the New Testament shall be made from the 
received Greek text, critically edited, with known errors corrected.' 

The following were the ' Special Instructions to the Revisers of the English 
New Testament : ' 

' 1. The common English version must be the basis of the revision; the Greek 
text, Bagster & Son's octavo edition of 1851. 

' 2. Whenever an alteration from that version is made on any authority addi- 
tional to that of the reviser, such authority must be cited in the manuscript, either 
on the same page or in an appendix. 

' 3. Every Greek word or phrase, in the translation of which the phraseology 
fi the common version is changed, must be carefully examined in every other place 
in which it occurs in the New Testament, and the views of the reviser given as to 
its proper translation in each place. 



MANY EEVISEBS. 529 

' 4. As soon as the revision of any one book of the New Testament is finished, 
it shall be sent to the Secretary of the Bible Union, or such other person as shall be 
designated by the Committee on Versions, in order that copies may be taken and 
furnished to the revisers of the other books, to be returned with their suggestions 
to the reviser or revisers of that book. After being re-revised, with the aid of these 
suggestions, a carefully prepared copy shall be forwarded to the Secretary.' 

Amongst the scholars who worked on the preliminary revision in Europe were 
Revs. Wm. Peechey, A.M. ; Jos. Angus, M.A., M.R. A.S. ; T. J. Gray, D.D., Ph.D. ; 
T. Boys, A.M. ; A. S. Thelwall, M.A. ; Francis Clowes, M.A. ; F. W. Gotch, A.M., 
and Jas. Patterson, D.D. Amongst the American revisers were Drs. J. L. Dagg, 
John Lillie, W. S. Lynd, Philip Schaff, Joseph Muenscher, John Forsyth, W. P. Strick- 
land and James Shannon ; Profs. E. S. Gallup, E. Adkins, M. K. Pendleton, N. N. 
Whiting, with Messrs. Alexander Campbell, Edward Maturin, Esq., E. Lord and S. 
E. Shepard. The final revision of the New Testament was committed to Drs. Co- 
nant, Hackett, Schaff and Kendrick, and was published 1865. The revisers held 
ecclesiastical connections in the Church of England, Old School Presbyterians, 
Disciples, Associate Reformed Presbyterians, Seventh- Day Baptists, American Pro- 
testant Episcopalians, Regular Baptists and German Reformed Church. Of the 
Old Testament books, the Union published Genesis, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Job, 
Psalms and Proverbs; I. and II. Samuel, I. and II. Kings, I. and II. Chronicles, 
remaining in manuscript, with a portion of Isaiah. It ako prepared an Italian and 
Spanish New Testament, the latter being commenced by Don Juan De Calderon, of 
the Spanish Academy. Also a New Testament in the Chinese Avritten character, and 
another in the colloquial for Ningpo ; one in the Siamese, and another in the Sqau 
Karen, besides sending a large amount of money for versions amongst the heathen, 
through the missionaries and missionary societies. It is estimated that about 750,000 
copies of the newly translated or revised versions of the Scriptures, mostly of the 
New Testament, were circulated by the Union. Its tracts, pamphlets, addresses, 
reports and revisions so completely revolutionized public opinion on the subject of 
revision that a new literature was created on the subject, both in England and 
America, and a general demand for revision culminated in action on that subject by 
the Convocation of Canterbury in 1870. 

As early as 1856 great alarm was awakened at the prospect that the American 
Bible Union would translate the Greek word ' baptizo ' into English, instead of 
transferring it, and the ' London Times ' of that year remarked that there were already 
' several distinct movements in favor of a revision of the authorized version ' of 
1611. The 'Edinburgh Review' and many similar periodicals took strong ground 
for its revision, and, in 1858, Dr. Trench, then Dean of Westminster, issued an elab- 
orate treatise showing the imperfect state of the commonly received version, and 
the urgent need of its revision, in which he said : ' Indications of the interest which 
it is awakening reach us from every side. America is sending us the installments — 
it must be owned not very encouraging ones — of a new version as fast as she can. 



530 CONVOCATION OF CANTERBURY. 

... I am persuaded that a revision ought to come. I am convinced that it will 
come. The wish for a revision has for a considerable time been working among 
dissenters here; by the voice of one of these it has lately made itself known in Par- 
liament, and by the mouth of a Regius Professor in Convocation.' The revision of 
the Bible Union was a sore thorn in his side ; and in submitting a plan of revision in 
the last chapter, in which he proposed to invite the Biblical scholars of ' the land to 
assist with their suggestions here, even though they might not belong to the church,' 
of course they would be asked as scholars, not as dissenters, he adds : ' Setting 
aside, then, the so-called Baptists, who, of course, could not be invited, seeing that 
they demand not a translation of the Scripture but an interpretation, and that in 
their own sense.' Some Baptist writer had denied in the ' Freeman ' of November 
17, 1858, that the Baptists desired to disturb the word ' baptize ' in the English ver- 
sion, but the Dean was so alarmed about their putting an ' interpretation'' into the 
text instead of a transfer, that he said in a second edition, in 1859 (page 210) : ' I 
find it hard to reconcile this with the fact that in their revision (Bible Union) bap- 
tizo is always changed into immerse, and baptism into immersion.' The pressure of 
public sentiment, however, compelled him to call for revision, for he said : ' How- 
ever we may be disposed to let the subject alone, it will not let us alone. It has 
been too effectually stirred ever again to go to sleep ; and the difficulties, be they 
few or many, will have one day to be encountered. The time will come when the 
inconveniences of remaining where we are will be so manifestly greater than the 
inconveniences of action, that this last will become inevitable.' 

The whole subject came up before the Convocation of the Province of Canter- 
bury in February, 1870, when one of the most memorable discussions took place 
that ever agitated the Church of England, in which those who conceded the desira- 
bleness of revision took ground, and amongst them the Bishop of Lincoln, that the 
American movement necessitated the need of prompt action on the part of the 
Church of England. In May of the same year the Convocation resolved : 

' That it is desirable that Convocation should nominate a body of its own mem- 
bers to undertake the work of revision, who shall be at liberty to invite the co-ope- 
ration of any eminent for scholarship, to whatever nation or religious body they may 
belong.' 

The chief rules on which the revision was to be made were the first and fifth, 

namely : 

' 1. To introduce as few alterations as possible into the text of the authorized 
version consistently with faithfulness. 5. To make or retain no change in the text 
on the second final revision by each company, except two thirds of those present 
approve of the same, but on the first revision to decide by simple majorities.' 

The revisers commenced their work in June, 1870, and submitted the New Tes- 
tament complete May 17th, 1881, the work being done chiefly "by seventeen Episco- 
palians, two of the Scotch Church, two dissenting Presbyterians, one Unitarian, one 



CONSULTING THE UNION'S VERSION. 531 

Independent and one Baptist. A board of American scholars had co-operated, and 
submitted ' a list of readings and renderings ' which they preferred to those finally 
adopted by their English brethren ; a list comprising fourteen separate classes of pas- 
sages, running through the entire New Testament, besides several hundred separate 
words and phrases. The Bible Union's New Testatnent was published nearly six 
years before the Canterbury revision was begun, and nearly seventeen years before 
it was given to the world. Although Dr. Trench had pronounced the ' installments ' 
of the American Bible Union's New Testament ' not very encouraging,' yet the 
greatest care was had to supply the English translators with that version. During 
the ten and a half years consumed in their work, they met in the Jerusalem Cham- 
ber at "Westminster each month for ten months of every year, each meeting lasting 
four days, each day from eleven o'clock to six ; and the Bible Union's New Testa- 
ment lay on their table all that time, being most carefully consulted before changes 
from the common version were agreed upon. One of the best scholars in the corps 
of English revisers said to the writer : ' We never make an important change with- 
out consulting the Union's version. Its changes are more numerous than ours, but 
four out of five changes are in exact harmony with it, and I am mortified to say 
that the pride of English scholarship will not allow us to give due credit to that 
superior version for its aid.' This was before the Canterbury version was com- 
pleted, but when it was finished it was found that the changes in sense from the 
common version were more numerous than those of the Union's version, and that 
the renderings in that version are verbatim in hundreds of cases with those of the 
Union's version. In the March ' Contemporary Review,' 1882, Canon Farrar cites 
twenty-four cases in which the Canterbury version renders the ' aorist ' Greek tense 
more accurately and in purer English than does the common version. He happily 
denominates all these cases ' baptismal aorists,' because they refer to the initiatory 
Christian rite in its relations to Christ's burial and resurrection. Yet, seventeen 
years before the Canterbury revisers finished their work, the Bible Union's version 
contained nineteen of these renderings as they are found in the Canterbury version, 
without the variation of a letter, while three others vary but slightly, and in the last 
case, which reads in the common version ' have obeyed,' and in the Canterbury 
' became obedient,' it is rendered more tersely, in the Union's version, simply 
' obeyed.' 

Much as Dr. Trench was disquieted about the word ' immerse ' being ' an inter- 
pretation ' and ' not a translation of ' bajytizo. he was not content to let the word 
'baptize' rest quietly and undisturbed in the English version, when compelled to 
act on honest scholarship, but inserted the preposition ' in ' as a marginal ' interpre- 
tation ' of its bearings, baptized ' in water.' Dr. Eadie, one of his fellow-revisers, who 
died in 1876, six years after the commencement of his work, complained bitterly of 
the American translation, which he was perpetually consulting in the Jerusalem 
Chamber. He also published two volumes on the ' Need of Revising the English 



S32 REUNION IN BIBLE WORE. 

New Testament,' and says (ii, p. 360) : ' The Baptist translation of the American Bible 
Union is more than faithful to anti-Paedobaptist opinions. It professedly makes the 
Bible the book of a sect,' because it supplanted the word baptize by the word im- 
merse. Yet, Dr. Scott, still another of the revisers, so well known in connection 
with ' Liddell and Scott's Lexicon,' worked side by side with both of them, and said 
in that lexicon that ' haptlzo'' meant ' to dip under water,' and Dean Stanley, still a 
third reviser, and the compeer of both, said : ' On philological grounds it is quite cor- 
rect to translate John the Baptist by John the Immerser ; ' while the board of seven- 
teen American revisers, representing the various religious bodies, united in recom- 
mending that the preposition in water be introduced into the text, instead of ' with.' 
After the separation between the American and Foreign Bible Society and the 
American Bible Union, the former continued to do a great and good work in Bible 
circulation and in aiding the translation of missionary versions. Dr. Welsh continued 
to act as its president for many years. For holy boldness, thrilling originality, art- 
less simplicity and seraphic fervor, he was one of the marvelous preachers of his 
day, so that it was a heavenly inspiration to listen to his words. Both these societies 
continued their operations till 1883, with greatly diminished receipts, from various 
causes, and the Bible Union was much embarrassed by debt, when it was believed 
that the time had come for the Baptists of America to heal their divisions on the 
Bible question, to reunite their efforts in Bible work, and to leave each man in the 
denomination at liberty to use what English version he chose. With this end in 
view, the largest Bible Convention that had ever met amongst Baptists convened at 
Saratoga on May 22, 1883, and, after two days' discussion and careful conference, it 
was unanimously resolved : 

' That in the translation of foreign versions the precise meaning of the original 
text should be given, and that whatever organization should be chosen as the most 
desirable for the prosecution of home Bible work, the commonly received version, 
the Anglo-American, with the corrections of the American revisers incorporated in 
the text, and the revisions of the American Bible Union, should be circulated.' 

' It also resolved : 

' That in the judgment of this Convention the Bible work of Baptists should 
be done by our two existing Societies ; the foreign work by the American Baptist 
Missionary Union, and the home work by the American Baptist Publication 

Society.' 

Although the American Bible Union had always disclaimed that it was a Bap- 
tist Society, yet, a large majority of its life members and directors being Baptists, in 
harmony with the expressed wish of the denomination to do the Bible work of Bap- 
tists through the Missionary Union and the Publication Society, the Bible Union 
disposed of all its book-stock and plates to the Publication Society, on condition that 
its versions should be published according to demand. The American and For- 
eign Bible Society did the same, and now, in the English tongue, the Publication 



MACLAY, WYCKOFF AND COLGATE. 



S33 





WS^' 



Society is circulating, according to demand, the issues of the Bible Union, the com- 
monly received version and the Canterbury revision, with the emendations recom- 
mended by the American corps of scholars incorporated into the text ; and so it has 
come to pass that the denomination which refused to touch English revision in 1850 
came, in less than a quarter of a century, to put its imprint upon two, to pronounce 
them fit for use amongst Baptists, and to circulate them cheerfully. 

Xext to Dr. Cone, the three men who did more to promote the revision of the 
English Bible than any others, were Drs. Archibald Maclay, "William H. Wyckoff:, 
and Deacon William Colgate. 
Archibald Maclay, D.D., was 
born in Scotland in 1T7S, and 
in early life became a Congre- 
gational pastor there ; but after 
his emigration to Xew York 
and a most useful pastorate 
there amongst that body he be- 
came a Baptist, moved by the 
highest sense of duty to Christ. 
For thirty-two years he was 
the faithful pastor of the Mul- 
berry Street Church, and left 
his pastorate at the earnest 
solicitation of the American 
and Foreign Bible Society to 
become its General Agent. In 
this work his labors were more 
abundant than they had ever 
been, for he pleaded for a pure 
Bible everywhere, by address 
and pen, with great power and 
success. In Great Britain and 
in all parts of the United States and Canada he was known and beloved as a sound 
divine and a fervent friend of the uncorrupted word of God. At the age of 
eighty-three years, on the 22d of May, 1S60, he fell asleep, venerated by all who 
knew him for his learning, zeal and purity. William H. Wyckoff, LL.D., was 
endowed with great intellectual powers, and graduated at Union College in 1828. 
His early life was spent as a classical tutor, when he first became the founder 
and editor of the ' Baptist Advocate ; ' then, in turn, the Corresponding Secretary 
of the American and Foreign Bible Society and the American Bible Union. He 
served the latter until his death, at the age of three score and ten, in Xovember, 
1877, and his Secretaryship over these two bodies covered forty and two con- 




DEACON WJl. COLGATE. 



S34 THE VETERAN TRANSLATOR. 

secutive years. Deacon William Colgate was one of the most consecrate and noble 
laymen in the Church of Christ, to whose memory such an able volume even as that 
of Dr. Everts, recounting the events of his life, can do but scant justice. He was 
born in Kent, England, in 1783, came to this country and established a large busi- 
ness in New York, which by his thrift and skill endowed him with abundant means 
for doing good. His elevated character and Christ-like spirit led him to the 
noblest acts of benevolence in the building up of Christian Churches, schools for 
the education of young ministers, the missionary enterprise and the relief of the 
poor. A pure Bible was as dear to him as his life, and few men have done more 
to give it to the world. He was the treasurer for numbers of benevolent societies, 
and one of the most liberal supporters of them all. He closed his useful and beau- 
tiful life on the 25th of March, 1857, at the age of seventy-four years. This chap- 
ter can scarcely be closed more appropriately than by a brief notice of four devoted 
Baptists, translators of the sacred Scriptures, in whose work and worth the denomi- 
nation may feel an honest pride. The veteran translator, 

Thomas J. Conant, D.D., was born at Brandon, Vt., in 1802. He graduated 
at Middleburg College in 1823, after which he spent two years, as resident graduate, 
in the daily reading of Greek authors with the Greek professor and in the study 
of the Hebrew under Mr. Turner, tutor in the ancient languages. In 1825 he 
became the Greek and Latin tutor in Columbian College, where he remained two 
years, when he took the professorship of Greek and Latin in the College at Water- 
ville, where he continued six years. He then retired, devoting two yeai's to the 
study of the Arabic, Syriac and Chaldee languages, availing himself of the aids 
rendered by Harvard, Newton and Andover. After this he accepted the professor- 
ship of Hebrew in Madison University, and that of Biblical Literature and Exegesis 
in the Theological Seminary connected therewith, in 1835. He continued these 
labors for fifteen years with large success and honor. In 1811-12 he spent eighteen 
months in Germany, chiefly in Berlin, in the study of the Arabic, ^Ethiopic and 
Sanscrit. Erom 1850 to 1857 he was the professor of Hebrew, Biblical Literature 
and Exegesis in the Rochester Theological Seminary, and stood in the front rank of 
American Hebraists with Drs. Turner and Stuart. Since 1857 Dr. Conant has 
devoted himself almost exclusively to the great work of his life, the translation and 
revision of the common English version of the Scriptures. He became thoroughly 
convinced as far back as the year 1827, on a critical comparison of that version with 
the earlier ones on which it was based, that it should be thoroughly revised, since 
which time he has made all his studies subsidiary to that end. Yet, amongst his ear- 
liest works, he gave to our country his translation of Gesenius' ' Hebrew Grammar,' 
with grammatical exercises and a chrestomathy bj the translator ; but his revision 
of the Bible, done for the American Bible Union, is the invaluable work of his life. 
This comprises the entire New Testament with the following books of the Old, 
namely : Genesis, Joshua, Judges, I. and II. Samuel, I. and II. Kings, Job, Psalms, 



DBS. OSGOOD AND HACKETT. 535 

Proverbs and a portion of Isaiah. Many of these are accompanied with invaluable 
•critical and philological notes, and are published with the Hebrew and English text 
in parallel columns. His work known as ' Baptizein] which is a monograph of that 
term, philologicallv and historically investigated, and which demonstrates its uniform 
sense to be immerse, must remain a monument to this distinguished Oriental scholar, 
while men are interested in its bearing on the exposition of Divine truth. Like all 
other truly great men, Dr. Conant is very unassuming and affable, and as much 
athirst as ever for new research. He keeps his investigations fully up with the 
advance of the age, and hails every new manifestation of truth from the old sources 
with the zest of a thirsty traveler drinking from an undefined spring. In his mel- 
lowness of age, scholarship and honor, he awaits the call of his Lord with that 
healthy and cheerful hope expressed in his own sweet translation of Job v, xxvi : 
* Thou shalt come to the grave in hoary age, as a sheaf is gathered in its season.' 

Howard Osgood, D.D., was born in the parish of Plaquemines, La., January, 
1831. He pursued his academical studies at the Episcopal Institute, Flushing, N. Y., 
and subsequently entered Harvard College, where he graduated with honors in 1850, 
being marked for accurate scholarship, a maturity of thought and a sobriety of 
judgment. Subsequently, he became much interested in the study of the Hebrew 
and cognate languages under the instruction of Jewish scholars, which studies he 
also pursued in Germany for about three years. On his return to America, he became 
dissatisfied with the teachings of the Episcopal Church, to which he was then united, 
as to the Christian ordinances, and in 1856 he was baptized on a confession of Christ 
into the fellowship of the Oliver Street Baptist Church, New York, by Dr. E. L. 
Magoon. He was ordained the same year as pastor of the Baptist Church at Flush- 
ing, N. Y., which he served from 1856 to 1858, when he became pastor of the North 
Church, New York city, which he served from 1860 to 1865. He was elected pro- 
fessor of Hebrew Literature in Crozer Theological Seminary in 1868, where he 
remained until 1874, when he took the same chair in the Rochester Theological 
Seminary, which he still fills. He was appointed one of the revisers of the Old 
Testament (American Committee) and was abundant in his labors, his sagacity and 
scholarship being highly appreciated by his distinguished colleagues. He has written 
much on Oriental subjects, chiefly for the various Reviews ; he is also the author of 
i Jesus Christ and the Newer School of Criticism,' 1883; and of the ' Pre-historic 
Commerce of Israel,' 1885. He translated Pierret's ' Dogma of the Resurrection 
among the Ancient Egyptians,' 1885. 

Horatio B. Hackett, D.D., LL.D. He was a native of Salisbury, Mass., born 
December 27, 1808. He became a pupil first in the Amesbury and then in the 
Phillips Academy. After graduating from Amherst College, he entered the The- 
ological Seminary at Andover, his school years extending from 1821 to 1834. In 
1834 he became the classical tutor in Mount Hope College, Baltimore. He was a 
Congregationalist at that time and had preached to a Church in Calais, Me. ; but in 



536 HACKETT ON SECTARIAN VERSIONS. 

1835, after thorough investigation and on deep conviction, he became a Baptist and 
united with the First Church, Baltimore. The same year he was chosen professor 
of Latin in Brown University, and in 1838 professor of Hebrew, also. Leaving 
Brown in 1839, he took the professorship of Biblical Literature and Interpretation 
in the Newton Theological Institution. He spent 1841-42 at Halle and Berlin, 
pursuing linguistic and Biblical studies, attending the lectures of Tholuck, Gesenius, 
Meander and Hengstenberg. His labors were continued at Newton for twenty-nine 
years, but in 1852 he traveled in Egypt and Palestine, studying the antiquities of 
those countries, after which he published his 'Illustrations of Scriptures.' In 1858 
he had become greatly interested in the revision of the English Scriptures and he 
accepted an appointment as reviser from the American Bible Union with such 
enthusiasm that he spent some time in Greece, mingling especially with the people of 
Athens, for the purpose of catching the grace and rhythm of the modern Greek, which 
he thought a helpful interpreter of the ancient language. He went out under the 
auspices of the Union, and shortly after his return published an enlarged edition of 
his ' Commentary on the Acts.' After mature consideration he resigned his profess- 
orship at Newton, in 1867, to devote all his time to the revision of the English 
Bible. He unbosomed himself on this subject, in his immortal address delivered 
before the Bible Union, in New York, August 6th, 1859, when it was charged by the 
ignorant or designing that the Union and its work were ' sectarian.' He nobly said : 

' I agree with the sentiments of one of the Christian denominations ; and if I 
have any sentiments at all, how, I beg to ask, could I entertain the sentiments of all 
the different denominations at the same time ? But am I, therefore, necessarily 
sectarian because I thus differ from others, any more than they are sectarian because 
they differ from me ? Or am I sectarian at all, in any sense, to disqualify me for 
the performance of this work, so far forth merely as my religious views are con- 
cerned ? To what, I pray, does this charge of sectarianism reduce itself? Is not a 
man who undertakes this labor to have any religious convictions? Would you en- 
trust it to those who have no fixed religious belief? Is it not evident that nothing 
can ever be done here unless it be done by those who have some definite religious 
opinions ? If, then, you would not employ men utterly destitute of religious con- 
victions to perform so religious and Christian a work, and if believing men cannot 
be expected to believe any thing where opinions clash, what remains ? The translator 
must symbolize with some one religious body rather than another ; and if that 
body is the Episcopalian or Congregationalist or Methodist, I would not say that a 
translation from a member of these sects was necessarily any more sectarian than if 
it was from the hand of a Baptist ; and, vice versa, I see not with what propriety 
some persons are pleased to stigmatize the publications of this Society as necessarily 
sectarian, if they come from Baptists, and not from our Episcopalian or Congrega- 
tionalist brethren. ... A given rendering of a passage which favors one creed more 
than another is not on that account merely a sectarian rendering ; it is the adoption 
of a rendering against the evidence, or without sufficient evidence, which makes the 
rendering sectarian. If you complain of a rendering as sectarian, refute it ; show 
that the reasons alleged for it are futile or insufficient, and that the evidence of phi- 
lology demands a different one, and that the man, therefore, is blinded to the light 
by partiality or prejudice. When a case like that is made out, you may fix there the 
brand of sectarianism ; but not otherwise. ... I should esteem it as disloyal and 



DR. A. G. KENBRIGK. 537 

reprehensible in myself, as in any other person, to twist or force in the slightest 
degree any passage, or word of a passage, in the Bible, for the purpose of upholding 
my own individual sentiments, or those of any party. ... It is an act of simple 
justice to say, that the managers of this Society have left me as free in this respect as 
the air we breathe. They have imposed upon me no condition or restraint whatever. 
They have merely said to me : " Study God's Word with painstaking and care ; en- 
deavor to ascertain, as accountable not unto men but to the Supreme Judge of all, what 
that Word means ; and then what the Bible is found to mean, that let the Bible say." ' 

Dr. Hackett translated the Epistle to Philemon, the Book of Ruth, and spent 
a number of years upon the final revision of the New Testament, especially upon 
the Acts of the Apostles. He was the editor-in-chief of the Ameiican edition of 
Smith's 'Dictionary of the Bible,' and so well was his work done that Canon West- 
cott discarded the English edition for this. Dr. Hackett filled the chair of Biblical 
Literature and New Testament Exegesis in Rochester Theological Seminary from 
1870 to his death in 1875. Only once in an age is such a man granted to the world. 
With the tenderness of a woman, the artlessness of a babe and the learning of a 
sage he blended the most modest humility, and yet his speech was wrapt in fire. 
The writer once consulted him officially, asking him to assist Dr. Conant on the 
Old Testament. On opening the subject, he began to bewail that other work had 
compelled him to lay aside his Hebrew studies for a time, and he said : ' I am really 
becoming rusty in the Hebrew, and should shrink to work side by side with the doctor 
on the Old Testament.' But in a moment the thought of returning to this delight- 
ful field of toil seized him, and he burst into an astonishing eulogy of that ancient 
tongue, as if glowing under the rhapsodies of prophetic warmth. He had struck a 
theme which aroused his unambitious spirit, his e} r e flashed, his speech became vivid, 
delicate, eloquent. Then, at once, with a nervous timidity, he checked himself and 
said, with the strange pleasantry of confidence and distrust : ' However, if it is for 
the best, I will try to assist the doctor, though not worthy to unloose his Hebrew 
sandal. Still, I must honestly say that, for all that, I really believe I could hold 
my own with him in the Greek.' 

Asahel C. Kendrick, D.D., LL.D., was born at Poultney, Vt., December, 1809, 
and when very young became a pupil of his uncle, Dr. N. Kendrick, at Hamilton, 
N. T. He graduated from the Hamilton College, at Clinton, N. Y., in 1831, and 
served with high distinction as Professor of the Greek language and literature in 
Madison University from 1831 to 1850, when he accepted the Greek professorship 
in the Rochester University, where he still remains. He passed the years 1852-54 
in Europe, visiting the German Universities, spending also a considerable time at 
Athens in the study of modern Greek. From early life he has been deeply inter- 
ested in the translation and revision of the English Bible, contributing most valu- 
able aid in that work, both for the Bible Union and as a member of the American 
Committee in the Canterbury revision. He is the author of several philological 
works, amongst them an ' Introduction to the Greek Language,' which work reached 



538 THE BAPTIST STAND MAINTAINED. 

a second edition in 1855. He is also the translator and editor of Olshausen's ' Com- 
mentary of the New Testament,' and of Lange's ' Biblical Commentary on the 
Epistle to the Hebrews.' As a biographer and poet he excels, as is seen in his 
attractive ' Memoir of Emily C. Jndson,' and his volume of poems called ' Echoes.' 
Dr. Kendrick has no superior in Greek scholarship in this country, and although he 
never was a pastor, he has few equals as an exegete in the New Testament. 

The Bible Revision Association, which was organized at Memphis, Tenn., in 
1852, rendered great aid in the revision of the English Scriptures. It co-operated 
with the American Bible Union in that work, and confined its field of operation to 
the Southern States, and was located at Louisville, Ky. Many of the ablest men in 
those States were enrolled in its membership, and the distinguished John L. Waller 
was its first President, filling the office till his death in 1851. As an author, a 
debater, and an orator he had few equals and no superior in the Kentucky ministry. 
Drs. S. W. Lynd, D. R. Campbell, W. Cary Crane, John L. Dagg, Samuel Baker, 
J. B,. Graves, and N. M. Crawford were all earnest and eloquent advocates of a faith- 
ful Bible. They have nearly all gone to their eternal rest, but their principles were 
divine and their works follow them. James Edmonds, Esq., was the first Corre- 
sponding Secretary of the Revision Association, and one of its ablest advocates. 

After the test of half a centur}', Baptists are more firmly persuaded than ever 
that their stand taken on the principle of Bible translation is- thoroughly sound. 
Then, much of the old nonsense as to the application of this principle to the English 
Bible has happily passed away, and those who believe in the home use of immer- 
sionist versions are no longer counted as holding rather close relationship with him 
of reputed hoofs and horns. The random talk of some Baptists thirty years ago 
left the impression that they would rather die in valiant martyr-hood than give 
transfer versions to our Churches in Asia, and at the same time, that they would 
endure martyrdom twice over rather than give any other sort of versions to our 
American Churches ! Others could not so entirely crucify their selfishness as to 
demand renderings from their missionaries in heathen languages, the like of which 
they would spurn with contempt if they were put into their own mother-tongue. 
On this point, singularly, there is some difference yet, but on the character of for- 
eign versions there is now but one view. They are sustained with the united 
Baptist hand and heart, and are likely to be, until all who reverence the inspired 
originals come to consider the versions of Judson and Carey as properly stamped 
with the catholicity of those originals ; a claim which will entitle them to the first 
place in the univocal versions of the entire earth. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

BAPTISTS IN BRITISH AMERICA AND AUSTRALIA. 

I 1ST tracing the progress of Baptist principles through the provinces which now 
form the Dominion of Canada, we may begin with Nova Scotia, which came 
under the British flag in 1713. English settlers, mostly Episcopalians, founded 
Halifax about 1719 ; Lunenburg was settled, principally by French and Germans, 
in 1753 ; and in 1759, after the expulsion of the Acadiaus, the influx from the New 
England colonies began. In a quarter of a century after that, Horton, Cornwallis, 
Yarmouth, Truro, Granville, Annapolis, Pictou and many other towns were settled 
by New Englanders. Many Lutherans settled in Lunenburg, and many Presbyte- 
rians from Scotland and the North of Ireland in Londonderry, Truro and Pictou, 
while the great body of emigrants from the American colonies were Congregational- 
ists. The first House of Assembly, 1758, passed an act which made the Church of 
England the Established Church, but granting liberty of conscience to all other 
denominations, Roman Catholics excepted ; marriage, however, could be celebrated 
only by the ministers of the Established Church. Many years and struggles were 
passed before this distinction was wiped from the statute-book. 

Shubael Dimock, of Mansfield, Conn., had become a ' Separatist,' and held relig- 
ious meetings apart from the Standing Order, for which he was whipped and 
thrown into prison ; his son Daniel had renounced infant baptism. They settled in 
Newport, N. S., in 1760, where Daniel was immersed by Mr. Sutton in 1763, and 
he immersed his own father some years later. Several other converts to Baptist 
views resided in Newport, but they did not organize a Baptist Church there at that 
time. Rev. John Sutton was from New Jersey, and soon returned thither. In 
1761 Rev. Ebenezer Moulton, of South Brimfield, Mass., settled in Yarmouth with 
other emigrants. After preaching there for two years, he visited Horton and 
labored in that vicinity, but seems to have formed no Church. These are the first 
Baptists of whom we have any records in Nova Scotia. So far as can 'be ascer- 
tained, the first Baptist Church in British America was planted in New Brunswick 
in 1763, and was an offshoot of the Second Church in Swansea, Mass., and of two 
or three neighboring Churches. A company of thirteen Baptists formed themselves 
into a Church, with Nathan Mason as their pastor, and, leaving Swansea, settled in 
what is now Sackville, where they continued to reside for nearly eight years, during 
which time their Church increased to about sixty members. But, owing to some 

dissatisfaction with their new location, the pastor and the original founders of the 
37 



S40 REV. HENRY ALLINE. 

Church returned to Massachusetts in 1771, and, so far as appears, the Church at 
Sackville was scattered. Some think that Mr. Moulton formed a Church at Horton, 
but Dr. Cramp says : ' There was no Baptist Church till after the appearance of 
Henry Alline. . . . While Mr. Sutton remained here he preached and baptized ; 
the Dimocks and Mr. Moulton did the same, but separate action as Baptists was 
deferred till a more favorable conjunction of circumstances.' The Congregational- 
ists had established Churches in various places, and the Baptists seem to have united 
with these, for, about the year 1776, there were two or three Churches in ]STova 
Scotia made up of Baptists and Congregationalists, while a number of unorganized 
Baptists were found in various localities. 

At this juncture Henry Alline, a ' New Light ' preacher of extraordinary 
power, appeared in the province and left a lasting impression upon its religious insti- 
tutions. He was born at Newport, R. I., in 1748, and removed to Falmouth, N. 
S., in 1760. He was converted when twenty -seven years of age, and after some 
unsuccessful attempts at securing an education he began to preach. He was very 
successful, traveling from place to place for nearly eight years, until New Bruns- 
wick and Nova Scotia were astir with religious revivals, the souls of the people 
being thrilled by his homely but pungent eloquence. He was a Congregationalist, 
but held the questions of Church order and ordinances as secondary matters. He 
seldom administered baptism, yet was willing that his converts should be immersed, 
if they chose, after thorough conversion. In fervency, power and doctrine he seems 
to have been of the Whitefield stamp. At the age of thirty-six years he died in 
Northampton, 1784. The ministry of this New Light apostle affected the progress 
of Baptist doctrines in two diverse ways. It infused a new and spiritual life into 
the languishing Churches, and his lax views on Church order and discipline told 
powerfully against all rigid and tyrannical organization. His converts were gene- 
rally formed into Congregational Churches, some being baptized and others not, 
until in due time numbers of them appear to have seen the need of greater con- 
formity to Gospel faith and practice, and at first resolved themselves into Baptist 
Churches, naturally enough of the open-communion order. Most of the Canadian 
Churches practiced open communion till the commencement of this century, and 
many of them till a later period. Some of the strongest Churches of New Bruns- 
wick and Nova Scotia came out of this Alline movement, all of them observing 
strict communion to-day. The Horton Church was one of these. It seems to have 
oscillated for a few years, but in 1809 it took the full Baptist ground. In this 
respect the Cornwallis, Chester, Argyle, First Halifax and other Churches differ 
little from the Horton Church, having gradually made their way to their present 
stand. 

The first Association of Baptist Churches in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick 
was projected in 1797 and was fully organized in 1800, at Granville, Annapolis 
County. In the main its work differed slightly from that of present associations. 



REV. EDWARD MANNING. 541 

It threw strong guards around the fundamental independence of the individual 
Church, stating that it ' pretends to no other powers than those of an advisory coun- 
cil, utterly disclaiming all superiority, jurisdiction, coercion, right or infallibility.' 
For more than a quarter of a century, however, it examined and ordained candi- 
dates for the ministry. But, gradually, its leading minds became convinced that the 
New Testament rested the power of ordination in the independent and self-govern- 
ing Church. ' Father Manning ' stated the principle quaintly in an address to the 
Association thus : ' I have observed that representative bodies, the world over, 
are very much inclined to take to themselves horns, and to so use them as to 
destroy the liberties of the people. An Association, therefore, must not put on 
horns.' After 1827 the Association ceased to ordain pastors, missionaries and evan- 
gelists, leaving that matter where it belongs, in the hands of the individual churches. 
The question of communion was also much debated, and in 1809 the Association 
resolved that in the future no open-communion Church should belong to that body. 
Four Churches withdrew on this account, and from that time restricted communion 
has been the rule. 

In 1821 the Association, for convenience, divided into the Nova Scotia and 
New Brunswick Associations, one for each province, and in 1850 the Nova Scotia 
portion subdivided into the Eastern, Central and Western Associations, as at this 
time. The New Brunswick Association also divided into the Eastern and West- 
ern in 1847, but in 1868 there was yet another new departure. Up to this time the 
Prince Edward Island Churches had been in the Eastern Nova Scotia Association, 
but they now organized one of their own, with thirteen Churches. The Southern 
Baptist Association of New Brunswick was. formed in 1880, and in 1885 these seven 
Associations, from these small beginnings, numbered 352 Churches, with 40,984 
members. Some of the fathers who laid these broad foundations were most remark- 
able men. As pioneers they were marked by breadth of view, singleness and steadfast- 
ness of purpose and a Christ-like self-denial. The names of Thomas H. Chipman, 
Theodore and Harris Harding, Edward and James Manning and Joseph Dimock 
will ever be worthy of the highest honor. These and many more were all of one 
spirit and endowed with a great diversity of gifts, but, by universal consent, prob- 
ably Edward Manning would rank amongst the first. 

He was converted under the preaching of Henry Alline, and in coming to the 
light passed through a ' horror of great darkness.' He traveled through these prov- 
inces in evangelistic labors, often on snow shoes in the depth of winter, to preach 
Jesus and the resurrection. His first pastorate, 1795, was over the mixed Church 
in Cornwallis, and for three years after his ordination he was greatly agitated on the 
subject of baptism, but at last he went to Annapolis and was immersed by T. H. 
Chipman. Soon after he renounced open communion, and with seven members of 
his Church separated from the main body. He continued in his pastorate till his 
death in 1851, and amongst his last words were these : ' Oh ! the infinite greatness 



542 PROVINCIAL NEWSPAPER PRESS. 

and grandeur of God.' He was imbued with deep piety and fervency of spirit ; he 
was a champion of religious liberty, and possibly surpassed all his brethren in pro- 
fundity and logical power. As a ' dissenting ' preacher, he met with stern opposition 
and persecution from those of the Established Church, meeting the harsher intoler- 
ance of New Brunswick with the firmness of a man born to rule his own spirit. 

Theodore Seth Harding was another Gospel warrior of those days. His first 
religious impressions were received under the ministry of Mr. Alline, when at the 
age of eight, but he was converted under the powerful preaching of Rev. Freeborn 
Garretson, a Methodist missionary from the United States, who was sent to Nova 
Scotia in 1787. Mr. Harding was ordained as pastor of the Horton Baptist Church 
in 1796, and remained its pastor until his death, in 1855. But like Manning and 
others, he extended his labors in every direction, even to the United States. In 
intellect he was not the peer of Manning, but far surpassed him in fluency and 
other elements of oratorical power, so that as a preacher he had few equals any- 
where. 

Joseph Dimock was the son of Daniel, who baptized his father when he fled 
for refuge from Connecticut. Joseph was ordained as pastor at Chester, in 1793, 
and although he made long missionary tours in all directions, he remained its pastor 
till his death, in 1847. He met with great opposition in his work. At Lunenberg 
infuriated mobs, maddened with liquor, determined to inflict personal violence upon 
him. but his firmness awed them and his gentleness disarmed their wrath. These 
are selected as types out of a large body of powerful and self-denying men, who 
have left the marvelous record of their work in these provinces. 

The Baptist press of Canada had its inception in the Nova Scotia Association, 
in 1825, which voted to 'Request the Baptist Association of New Brunswick to 
unite with us in the publication of a Religious Periodical Magazine.' From this 
action sprang tne ' Baptist Missionary Magazine,' of Nova Scotia and New Bruns- 
wick, in 1827. It was a quarterly, published at St. John, N. B., and edited by Rev. 
Charles Tupper, and was continued until January, 1837, when it gave place to the 
1 Christian Messenger,' a weekly, published at Halifax, N. S. From that time it has 
rendered noble service to all our denominational interests, and still exists in com- 
bination with the ' Christian Visitor,' at St. John, N. B. The ' Christian Visitor ' 
was established in 1848, and was conducted by Rev. E. D. Very, who was drowned 
in the Bay of Minas, in 1852, when returning from a geological excursion, in com- 
pany with Professor Chipman and four students of Acadia College, all of whom 
perished. For a time the paper was conducted by Messrs. Samuel Robinson and 
I. E. Bill. After a time, Rev. Dr. Bill assumed full charge as proprietor and editor, 
and conducted this journal with marked ability, but in 1885 the two papers were 
purchased by a company, and united under the editorship of Rev. Calvin Goodspeed 
as the ' Messenger and Visitor,' published at St. John, N. B. 

The first regular Missionary Society of the Nova Scotia Baptists began in 1815, 



DR. TUPPER AND MISSIONS. 543 

when the Association, meeting at Cornwallis, ' Voted, that the Association is con- 
sidered a Missionary Society, and witli them is left the whole management of the 
mission business.' A contribution of $118, 60 was made at this session for sending 
a missionary eastward of Halifax. From time to time the Association sent out mis- 
sionaries, and in 1820 the first Home Mission Board was appointed in New Bruns- 
wick. ' Mite Societies ' were formed in the Churches which were of great utility. 
The Female Mite Society of the Germain Street Church, in St. John, contributed 
$60, that year, a degree of liberality which, if attained by all the Churches at 
this time, would fill the mission treasury to repletion. The first IN; ova Scotia ' So- 
ciety for the maintainance of Foreign Missions ' was formed at the Chester meeting 
of the Association, 1838, and a Foreign Mission Board was appointed soon after in 
New Brunswick. Burma was chosen as the field of labor, and the first missionary 
sent out was Rev. E. E. Burpee, in 1845; he died in 1850. After his death 
the Provincial Board sent money annually to support native preachers, under 
the care of Bev. A. R. R. Crawley, of Henthada. Dr. Tupper was for many 
years the Secretary of the Foreign Board. His life was a wonderful triumph of 
energy and industry. His schooling was limited to ten weeks after he was ten years 
of age, and yet by dint of self-education he became proficient in many languages : 
Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, English, German, Italian, Syriac and one or two 
others, and it is said that he read the New Testament in the first three of these at 
least one hundred times. At the Jubilee of his ordination Dr. Tupper stated, that 
as a minister he had traveled in fifty years 146,000 miles, principally on horseback, had 
preached 6,750 sermons, attended and generally taken part in 3,430 other meetings, 
had made 11,520 family visits, married 238 couples, had conducted 542 funerals, and 
baptized 522 converts. Surely, if works save men, Brother Tupper's chance should 
be better than that of some Canadian brethren, however it may be with those of the 
United States. Dr. S. T. Rand's name forms an important leaf in the Indian mis- 
sionary history of the Maritime Provinces, especially amongst the Micmacs. He has 
pursued this work diiring the greater part of his life, with indomitable perseverance 
and chiefly at his own charges. 

Our brethren have also done an immense work in these Provinces by their 
educational institutions. Their fathers, generalty, knew nothing of the learning of the 
schools, yet their interest in laying the foundations of these schools was unique rather 
than remarkable. They early saw that if the denomination was to do its Master's work 
in the most efficient manner, they must make early provision for the Christian educa- 
tion of the Churches, especially for an educated ministry. The venerable ' Father 
Munro ' gave this terse expression to their common conviction : ' The man who suc- 
cessfully succeeds me in the pastoral office must stand on my shoulders.' It is 
probable that the first suggestion of a Baptist institution of learning for these Prov- 
inces was made by Edward Manning, and when the subject came up for discussion 
he pondered every point, and corresponded largely with the brethren in the United 



S44 EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 

States on the matter. The way was dark, the Baptists were a feeble folk to under- 
take such a work, yet a series of events occurred between 1820-50 which facilitated 
the project. The founding of the Granville Street Church at Halifax by a number 
of members seceding from the Church of England gave force to the movement. The 
Crawley family and others amongst them were educated, and were ready to give 
their influence in this direction. The remarkable revival of 1828 brought a num- 
ber of educated men into the Baptist Churches and ministry, who became active 
workers in the cause of education — such men as John Pryor, E. A. Crawley, William 
Chipman, Ingraham E. Bill and others. The Granville Street Church was admitted 
into the Association in 1828, at its meeting in Horton, at which time the Prospectus 
of the Nova Scotia Baptist Education Society was drawn up and submitted by the 
Halifax messengers of the Church there. The Society aimed to establish a sem- 
inary of learning, and to aid indigent young men in studying for the ministry. Their 
action will appear sufficiently courageous when it is taken into the account that 
twenty-nine little Churches, numbering in all 1,772 members, formed their entire 
strength. The first result was the establishment of the Academy at Horton, with 
Rev. William Pryor as Principal. This school has continued ever since, and is per- 
petually fitting men for College life and all the various fields of usefulness. 

The Baptists of New Brunswick numbered but about 2,000 in 1834, when they 
followed the example of their Nova Scotia brethren and opened a 'Seminary' in 
Fredericton. In 1842 the Rev. Charles Spurden, of Hereford, England, was 
appointed principal, which position he held for twenty-five years. Dr. Spurden was 
greatly endeared to his students and his brethren generally by his literary attain- 
ments and lovable qualities of character ; he died in 1876, after a short pastorate in 
the Fredericton Church. The Seminary did good service under other principals, but 
it was closed after many years of financial struggle, and within a few years another 
has been opened at St. John, under more favorable conditions ; from its opening it 
has had a female department. A female seminary was opened in 1861, in connection 
with the Horton (Wolfville) School, and is still in vigorous operation. The intol- 
erance of the dominant Church had much to do with the founding of denom- 
inational schools and colleges. Early in the history of Nova Scotia, King's College 
was founded at Windsor, under the aegis of the English Church, which admitted no 
student except on subscription of the Thirty-nine Articles. Dalhousie College was 
founded in 1820, with public funds, ostensibly as a non-sectarian University for the 
Province. But when it was opened the classical chair was refused to Rev. E. A. 
Crawley, for the sole reason, as Dr. Bill states : ' That those in charge felt bound, 
as they said, to connect the college exclusively with the Kirk of Scotland.' Thus 
mocked, the friends of Baptist education found it time to bestir themselves, and 
the result was a determination to found a college of their own, hence the origin 
of Acadia College. In addition to the great burden of raising the necessary funds 
by so feeble a folk, their task was increased by the difficulty of obtaining the 



ACADIA COLLEGE. 545 

requisite charter. Their foes raised a popular cry against the multiplication of feeble 
colleges, until the spirit of the Baptists was thoroughly aroused, when they resolved 
to maintain their right to possess such an institution if they paid for it with their 
own money. The Committee of their Educational Society went to Halifax in a 
body, and Mr. Crawley eloquently pleaded the justice of their cause at the bar of 
the House, which refused the charter by a majority of one. The seat of war was 
then transferred to public platforms and the newspapers, with such effect, that in 
1840 the House was flooded with petitions for the charter. After a determined and 
bitter contest the Assembly granted it by a majority of twelve, the champion of the 
Baptists being Hon. J. "W". Johnstone, a member of the Upper House ; it also 
passed the Legislative Council. 

The second struggle arose on a more questionable point. Large appropriations 
were made by the Legislature in aid of King's and Dalhousie Colleges, and the Baptists 
thought it but common justice that they should share in the public fund set apart 
for higher education ; some few of them, however, holding that this position com- 
promised the principle of voluntary support. This demand re-opened the whole 
question of college policy for the Province, the leading liberal politicians favoring 
the plan of one central university. The Baptists boldly entered the political arena, 
made Hon. J. W. Johnstone their candidate, elected him to the Legislature by an 
overwhelming majority and pressed their claim successfully. He was a gentleman 
of the highest character, of fine culture and splendid abilities. Afterwards, for 
many years, he was Attorney General and Premier of the Province ; he also filled 
the chair of Chief Justice with distinction, and declined the governorship of the 
Province shortly before his death. In 1863 an unsuccessful attempt was made to 
rehabilitate Dalhousie as the Provincial University. Failing in that, a larger scheme 
was proposed, under which denominational colleges should each receive an annual 
grant for a term of years, on condition that they surrendered or held in reserve their 
powers to grant degrees. These powers were to be transferred to a Provincial 
University to be established at Halifax. This was not to be a teaching institution, 
but simply an examining body empowered to confer degrees and to prescribe the 
curricula for all the affiliated colleges. After an animated debate at the Baptist 
Convention, held at Sackville, 1876, the proposition to affiliate Acadia College with 
the Halifax University was negatived by a large majority. 

This college has had a perpetual struggle with financial difficulties consequent 
on its small and by no means wealthy constituency, but it has made constant progress, 
and its influence on the ministry and Churches is seen everywhere in their liberal 
culture, their intellectual and spiritual development. The first effort to raise an 
endowment was made in 1852, and by various other efforts the amount has been 
increased to about $100,000. In 1849 it was adopted as the College of the Baptists 
in the three Maritime Provinces. Many of its students have attained considerable 
distinction, and hold responsible positions in the Dominion and the United States. Dr. 



S46 



REV. DR. CRAMP. 



Crawley, who did so much to establish it and was its first president, felt compelled 
to resign that office in 1856, to attend to certain private business affairs which, for 
the time being, demanded his entire attention. But after their arrangement, in 1865, 
he returned to his work as an educator, accepting the chair of Classics, and for a 
time he also served as Principal in the Theological Department. He still retains 
his connection with the Institution as Professor Emeritus. Acadia College was 
never in a more prosperous condition than at present. 

The venerable J. M. Cramp, D.D., whose name will ever be associated with the 
College as its second President, was the son of Rev. Thomas Cramp, a Baptist min- 
ister in the Isle of Thanet, was born in 
1796, baptized in 1812, and was educated 
at Stepney College. He was ordained in 
1818 as pastor of the Dean Street Baptist 
Church, South wark, London. Subse- 
quently, for fourteen years, he assisted 
his father in the pastorate of St. Peter's 
Church, in his native town. In 1840 he 
became pastor of the Church at Hastings, 
Sussex. Four years later he was sent by 
the Committee of the Canada Baptist 
Missionary Society to take charge of the 
Montreal Baptist College ; and in 1857 
he became President and Professor of 
Moral Philosophy in Acadia College. 
He continued in active service till the 
infirmities of age compelled him to re- 
tire, in 1869, when he was made Professor 
Emeritus; his death occurred a few years later. Dr. Cramp's attainments were 
extensive ; he was a good Hebrew scholar, a sound theologian, and thoroughly versed 
in Ecclesiastical History, as is seen in his ' Baptist History.' He was a true friend 
of a pure Bible, always insisting on fidelity to God in the translation of his Word. 
His character was sweet and unselfish, his aims were high, and his life stainless and 
full of affability. As a writer he is well known by his ' Text Book of Popery,' 
which is regarded as authoritative, also by his ' Paul and Christ,' and numerous 
other publications. 

Rev. A. W. Sawyer, D.D., the present President of Acadia College, is a native 
of Vermont, and a graduate of Dartmouth College, of the class of 1847. He com- 
pleted his theological course at Newton, and was ordained in 1853. He was appointed 
to the chair of Classics in Acadia in 1855, which chair he resigned in 1860. He 
then served as pastor of the Church at Saratoga Springs, N. Y., and as Principal of 
the New London Academy, N. H, but in 1869 he accepted the Presidency of Aca- 




THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC. S47 

dia, with the chair of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy. While Dr. Sawyer is very 
unassuming and quiet, he is one of the foremost educators in the Dominion. He 
is accurate and extensive in his scholarship, keen in his perception, close and logical 
in his habit of thought. In the class-room he has few equals in throwing the student 
back upon his own resources and compelling him to make his best intellectual 
efforts. The efficient staff of tutors, with himself, are making the Institution a 
blessing to the Denomination, as one of the agencies which are doing so much to 
make the Baptists more and more powerful in the Maritime Provinces. 

The Province of Quebec, formerly Lower Canada, is another interesting field 
of Baptist labor. The first Baptist Church in this Province, of which we find any 
record, was formed in 1794 at Caldwell's Manor, not far from the Vermont border. 
For many years this neighborhood had been occupied by Loyalist Refugees, mostly 
from Connecticut. Rev. John Hubbard and Ariel Kendrick, missionaries of the 
"Woodstock (Vt.) Baptist Association, visited and preached in this settlement ; their 
labors were greatly blessed ; Rev. Elisha Andrews, of Fairfax, baptized about thirty 
converts and formed them into a Church. Two years later some of its members 
removed to a new township called Eaton, south of the St. Lawrence, in the district 
of Three Rivers, and were organized into a Church. Several others were formed in 
this part of Lower Canada under the labors of the Massachusetts Baptist Missionary 
Society. Benedict speaks of three of these as members of the Fairfield Associa- 
tion in 1812, namely, those of St. Armand, Stanbridge and Dunham. A somewhat 
similar movement took place in Upper Canada, now Ontario, in 1791. Reuben 
Crandall, then a licentiate, settled at Hallowell, in what is now the County of Prince 
Edward, on the northern shore of Lake Ontario, and in the following year he organ- 
ized a Church. Another licentiate, T. Finch, organized a Church in Thurlow, now 
Haldimand, about 1804, which seems to have been known as the Charlotteville 
Church, and in a comparatively few years eight Churches were set off from this body. 
Other laborers established Churches about the same time in Cramahe, Rawdon, and 
neighboring places. About 1803 the first Association in this district was formed, 
called the Thurlow, but afterwards the Haldimand Association, and this was a center 
of Baptist influence until this region of Canada became dotted with Baptist Churches 
gathered into several Associations. Thus it is seen that the pioneer Churches of 
Quebec and Ontario, as well as those of the Maritime Provinces, were planted by 
missionaries from the United States, excepting the elder Churches embraced in what 
is now the Ottawa Association. The members who first composed its Churches, with 
their pastors, were largely emigrants from Scotland. The eldest of these, Breadal- 
bane, was organized in 1817 with thirteen members, all Scotch, their first eldei's being 
Duncan Campbell and Donald McLaurin. Next in order was the Clarence Church, 
1817, formed of seven members. John Edwards, who was instrumental in its forma- 
tion, was converted in Edinburgh under the ministry of the Haldanes. Other Churches 
in the valley of the Ottawa, as Dales ville and Osgoode, have a similar origin and history. 



548 MONTREAL AND VICINITY. 

The first Baptist Church of Montreal was not organized till 1830, but it natu- 
rally took a leading part in originating and shaping the missionary and educational 
work in this part of Canada. Rev. John Gilmour, of Aberdeen, was its first pastor, 
a zealous leader in denominational work for many years. These and most of the 
other Churches in the eastern part of Canada, during the first quarter of the present 
century, practiced open communion, a subject which for many years kept them in 
grievous friction with those of the western part. The eastern Churches held with 
right good Scotch grip all the orthodox doctrines, as well as to the immersion of 
believers on their trust in Christ. But they regarded the edification of the brethren 
and the observance of the Supper as the chief ends of the Gospel Church, losing 
sight of its aggressive character. They believed that evangelists should be sup- 
ported while preaching, but gave no remuneration to the elders of their own 
Churches. They made the plurality of elders, the weekly celebration of the Sup- 
per, the liberty of the unordained to administer ordinances, and exhortations on the 
Lord's day, binding as duties on the whole brotherhood. Unanimity was required 
in all their decisions, and if a minority dissented the majority took their reasons for 
dissent into consideration. If these were found valid the majority altered their 
decision ; if not, they exhorted the minority to repentance, but if they repented not 
they were excommunicated. They held that the exercise of discipline on the 
Lord's day was a part of divine worship, and they never neglected the duty of 
purging out the ' old leaven,' but rather enjoyed the exercise. Down to 1834, 
including the Montreal and Breadalbane Churches, they numbered but four Churches 
and three ministers. 

In the years 1831-35 a memorable revival of religion gave new life to the 
Baptist cause in Eastern Canada. It began in Montreal and extended through the 
Churches of the valley, the immediate result being that the Churches came nearer 
to each other, and formed the Ottawa Association. A second revival, under 
the labors of Messrs. McPhail, Fyfe, and other ardent young missionaries, was en- 
joyed three or four years later. Its center wasinOsgoode and vicinity, and it gave a 
fresh impulse to the spread of Baptist principles. The growth of the denomination 
in the West was more rapid. The fertile regions bordering on the Upper St. Law- 
rence and lakes Ontario and Erie invited a large influx of population. The Haldi- 
mand Association included the Churches in the London district, but the Upper 
Canada Association, which held its first meeting in 1819, embraced the neighbor- 
hood which includes Toronto and Brantford. In 1839 there were five Regular and 
one ; Irregular,' or open communion, Baptist Association, their statistics being : 
Churches, 172 ; members, 3,722. Nine or ten Churches, with a membership of 
about 560, were not connected with any association, making in all about 4,282 mem- 
bers. The following statistics for 1885 indicate the growth of the denomination in 
the entire Dominion — Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and North-west Territory : 
Churches, 370 ; members, 28,987. New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Ed- 



FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE. 549 

ward's Island : Churches, 352 ; members, 40,989. The total for British America 
being : Of Churches, 722 ; and of members, 69,971. 

At the first meeting of the Ottawa Association, in 1836, it resolved unanimously 
io send a deputation to Great Britain to solicit aid in the proclamation of the Gospel 
in Canada, and to establish an academy for the training of young men for the min- 
istry. The academy was commenced in that year, Rev. Newton Bosworth taking 
charge of the instruction. Rev. John Gilmour visited England and Scotland as the 
agent of the Association, and received collections there of about $5,000 for erecting 
a proper building, and a society was formed in London known as the Baptist Cana- 
dian Missionary Society. On Mr. Gilmour's return a similar society was formed in 
Canada, having for its aim the support of home missionaries and the promotion of 
theological education. It accomplished an excellent work. The ' Canada Baptist 
Magazine and Missionary Register ' was published as a monthly for two or three 
years under its supervision ; but it was discontinued about the year 1842, when a 
weekly paper appeared known as the ' Montreal Register.' 

A root of bitterness in the communion question sprang up, which finally led to 
the extinction of the Missionary Society in Canada, and this controversy between the 
Eastern and Western Baptists became more pronounced year by year. The Society 
disclaimed that it was an open communion body, and avowed that the Churches 
which it assisted were mainly strict communion bodies. Distrust abounded, and 
about the year 1854 the Western Canada Baptist Home Missionary Society was 
formed, under the auspices of the Strict Communionists, and the Montreal Society 
soon died. In 1843 the Canada Baptist Union had been formed, somewhat after 
the model of the English Union, its general objects being to promote the unity and 
prosperity of the denomination, ' especially to watch over our religious rights and 
privileges ; to secure their permanence and promote their extension.' Ample scope 
was afforded for the exercise of its vigilance and wisdom. At that time the great 
doctrines of religious equality and freedom of conscience were not well understood 
in Canada, so that it fell to the lot of the Baptists to bring them and their defense 
to the front. They had to meet the Clergy Reserves Question, the outgrowth of a 
provision in the Constitutional Act of 1791, whereby an allotment equal in value to 
one seventh of all grants of public lands in Upper Canada was to be set apart for 
the support of a ' Protestant clergy.' These reserves soon became valuable, while 
the ambiguity of the phrase ' Protestant clergy ' made it a subject of contention 
amongst the Protestant denominations for many years. Some claimed that the word 
Protestant was merely the antithesis of ' Catholic,' and so, that the reserves were for 
the benefit of all sects which abjured the tenets of the Roman Catholics. Others 
maintained as stoutly that the word ' clergy ' designated only the ministers of the 
Church of England, and it had never been applied in any British statute to any 
ministers but those of that Church and of Rome. The Baptists, true to their prin- 
ciples, refused to apply for any portion of these funds, but insisted on their secu 



5SO THE UNIVERSITY QUESTION. 

larization and use for legitimate State purposes. Messrs. Davies, Cramp, G-ilmour, 
Girdwood and Fyfe, their leaders, denied the right of the State to vote lands or 
money to any Church, and demanded religious equality before the law, leaving all 
denominations to support themselves. 

The same principles were involved and the same ground was taken in regard to 
university endowment. In 1797 the English Government had authorized the Legis- 
lative Council and House of Assembly in Upper Canada to set apart the land of 
ten townships, equal to half a million of acres, as a foundation for four Grammar 
Schools and a University. At this period the Executive, the Legislature and the 
Councils were, almost without exception, members of the dominant Church, and 
cast their influence so solidly for the Episcopal High Church party that it became 
known as the ' Family Compact.' Arch-deacon, afterwards Bishop Strachan, a 
crafty, resolute and not over-scrupulous politician, was at their head. Backed by 
powerful friends and using many machinations he secured from the Imperial 
Parliament the fund for the establishment of an Episcopal University and the post- 
ponement of the erection of the Grammar Schools. The Executive Government 
was also to be created a permanent commission, with power to dispose of the lands 
and manage the revenues, and so to remove them beyond the reach of popular con- 
trol. This high-handed attempt to saddle an Established Church and an exclusively 
Episcopal University upon the infant province was resisted by the Baptists at every 
step. They petitioned the Government and remonstrated strenuously, and after 
much other action their Union, in 1845, gave the following as their voice on the sub 
ject : 

' That in our estimation the most just, and ultimately the most satisfactory set- 
tlement of the so-called University Question, would be founded on the following 
general principles : To confine the funds of the University exclusively to the Fac- 
ulties of Arts, Sciences, Law and Medicine, giving no support whatever to Theolog- 
ical Professors of any denomination, but leaving each sect to support out of its own 
resources its teachers in divinity.' 

This was followed in 1853 with an utterance through their Missionary Society, 
in words declaring : 

' In the most emphatic and decided manner its determination never to rest satis- 
fied until the Clergy Reserves are secularized by the Government,' and the ' fixed 
resolution of the Churches throughout the entire Province of Canada, to resist by 
every lawful and available means any and every attempt which may be made by the 
Government, or otherwise, to induce the Baptist denomination, in particular, and 
the other religious denominations in Canada, to accept of any partition of the Clergy 
Reserves Fund, for any purpose whatever.' 

Partition had been pressed in some quarters as a basis of settlement, but, true 
to their ancient faith, the Baptists would have none of it; they finally triumphed, 
and as the result Canada now enjoys the same religious liberty that is secured to 
all in the United States. 



CANADIAN PERIODICALS AND MISSIONS. 531 

In regard to Baptist periodicals in Canada West, it may be well to say, that after 
one or two futile attempts, the ' Christian Messenger ' began its publication at Brant- 
ford, in 1853, but in 1859 it was removed to Toronto, and its name was afterwards 
changed to the ' Canadian Baptist,' which is still published as the leading organ of 
Baptist opinion. A few years since, it was purchased by a company of which the 
Hon. William McMaster is the principal stockholder. The constitution of the com- 
pany makes the various denominational Societies the joiut beneficiaries of the net 
profits of the paper. But with his characteristic liberality, Mr. McMaster announced 
in October, 1886, his readiness to hand over the paid-up stock held by him, amount- 
ing to $40,000, to those Societies, which are now quite numerous. During the last 
thirty-four years, the Baptist Home Mission Society of Ontario, has planted seventy 
self-sustaining Churches, and more than seven thousand converts have been baptized 
on its field, west of the city of Kingston. During the last year it helped to 
support sixty-two feeble Churches and maintained preaching at sixty out-stations. 
The Baptists of that vicinity have expended about $130,000 in home mission work. 
The field occupied by the Eastern Society lies amongst a population two thirds of 
whom speak French and are Roman Catholics. The French-speaking people are 
crowding the English-speaking people out, and many of our Churches are depleted, 
yet in 1885 one hundred and thirteen converts were baptized on the field. Steps 
are already taken for the union of the Eastern and Western Conventions. 

During the first seven years of the Foreign Mission Society of Ontario and 
Quebec it was auxiliary to the American Baptist Missionary Union ; but in 1873 it 
undertook an independent mission to the Telugus. Six missionaries with their 
wives, and two unmarried female missionaries, have been sent to that field. During 
twelve years the Society has expended more than $100,000 in foreign work, and 
within the last two years Rev. A. V. Timpany and Rev. Gr. F. Currie have died at 
their posts as missionaries. The Foreign Missionary Society of the Maritime Prov- 
inces sustains about the same number of laborers, and both of them employ several 
native preachers also. The ' elect ' ladies in all the provinces are rendering efficient 
aid by auxiliary societies and a monthly paper, the ' Missionary Link,' which does 
good service in the same cause. 

The Grand Eigne Mission, in the Province of Quebec, has been in operation 
for half a century, and has been the means of bringing about 5,000 persons to the 
knowledge of the truth, who are now scattered over Canada, the New England 
States and the far West. About 3,000 of these passed several years in the schools 
of the mission, and are spreading abroad the light which they received there. T. S. 
Shenston, Esq., of Brantford, Treasurer of the Foreign Missionary Society of 
Ontario and Quebec, is one of the noblest laymen in Canada. During the most 
critical years of its history he was Treasurer of its Board and has always been 
amongst its most liberal supporters. He was born in London, England, in 1822, and 
came to Canada when but nine years of age. Endowed with superior native ability, 



B82 CANADIAN EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

controlled by unflinching integrity and industry, he has risen to great usefulness and 
honor. He commenced life as a farmer, but at the age of twenty-seven was made a 
magistrate in Oxford County, where he resided. There were seventy-five magistrates 
in that county, and the returns of convictions show that he did more magisterial 
business than all of them put together. In 1851 he published a ' County Warden 
and Municipal Officer's Assistant,' and in 1852 an 'Oxford Gazetteer.' He set up 
type and printed with his own hands a work on 'Baptism,' in 1864, and for many 
years he has held the office of Register of Brant County. In conjunction with another 
generous soul, for years he sustained an Orphan House for twenty-two girls in Brant- 
ford. He is senior deacon of the First Baptist Church in that city, and has been 
the Superintendent of its Sabbath-school for the better part of twenty-five years. 
In addition to the books here named he has published several others, amongst them, 
' The Sinner and his Saviour ' (256 pages), and an ingenious ' Perpetual Calendar,' 
reliable for some hundreds of years. All this is the work of what is called a ' self- 
made' man. 

A brief sketch of Baptist Educational work will be acceptable. In 1838 the 
Committee of the London Society sent out Dr. Benjamin Davies to take charge of 
the Theological Institution at Montreal, known as the ' Canada Baptist College.' As 
the number of students increased a comfortable stone building was purchased, 
where the work was done with tolerable efficiency until 1843, when Dr. Davies 
returned to London to act as a Professor in Regent's Park College. Rev. Robert 
A. Fyfe had charge of the Montreal Institution in 1843-44, and was succeeded by 
the Rev. J. M. Cramp ; but in an evil hour a costly edifice was built, and its debts 
were so heavy that in 1849 it succumbed; the library and property were sold and it 
was discontinued. While it was in operation it did an excellent work, and many of 
its students of high character are a blessing to the Churches still ; its managers and 
supporters were liberal and large hearted and its tutors were able men. But its 
location was 400 miles east of the principal center of Canadian Baptist population, 
its sympathies and methods were not sufficiently American, it was thought to cherish 
open communion sentiments, and at that time there was little love amongst the Bap- 
tists of Canada West for an educated ministry ; all of which causes contributed to 
its downfall. Since this unhappy failure no further attempt has been made to estab- 
lish a Baptist institution of learning in Lower Canada. 

Several abortive attempts were put forth in this direction in the West, the most 
ambitious of which was in connection with the ' Maclay College,' projected in 1852. 
Dr. Maclay, an indefatigable friend of education, was induced to make the attempt 
to raise £10,000 for the establishment of a Theological Institution, more than half 
of which sum was subscribed. Dr. Maclay was chosen President, but declined to 
serve ; the managers and subscribers failed to agree amongst themselves as to a suc- 
cessor, and in other things, and the scheme fell to the ground. Dr. Fyfe devised a 
practicable plan for a Canadian Baptist College, in 1856, which, after much arduous 



DR. ROBERT A. FYFE. 553 

labor and anxious care has been crowned with success. Rev. Robert A. Fyfe, D.D., 
was born in Lower Canada, in 1816, was baptized in 1835, and almost immediately 
after left for Madison University to prepare for the ministry. "Want of means and 
ill health compelled him to return home within a year, but he continued his studies 
first at Montreal and then at the ' Manual Labor High School,' Worcester, Mass. 
He entered Newton Theological Seminary in 1839 and graduated thence in 1812. 
After several years of successful pastoral labor in other places, he became pastor of 
the Bond Street Church, Toronto. He submitted to the denomination. his scheme 
for a school with a literary and theological department, providing for the admission 
of both sexes in the literary department, which project was indorsed, but with much 
misgiving. Woodstock was chosen as its site, and after three or four years of hard 
struggle a substantial building was erected there. In 1860 Dr. Fyfe was con- 
strained to resign his pastorate and accept the principalship, from which time until 
his death, in 1878, he devoted all his powers to its interests. The lirst edifice was 
destroyed by fire just as the Institution was opening its doors to students, and 
years of self-denying effort were buried in heaps of ashes and blackened bricks, 
with a debt of $6,000 on the smoking embers. With characteristic courage he 
immediately began to rebuild, and in the face of difficulty, discouragement and 
gloom, two better buildings were erected, one for the exclusive use of the ladies' 
department. His death removed a prince from our Canadian Israel. In the The- 
ological Department, for some years before his death, Rev. John Crawford, D.D., 
and Rev. John Torrance had been associated with him, and after his death the work 
of the Institute was conducted under two heads for a time. Professor Torrance 
was Principal of the Theological, and Professor J. E. Wells was Principal of the 
Literary Department. 

The policy of the Canadian Baptists in educational work was greatly changed 
by the munificence of the Hon. William McMaster. Before Dr. Fyfe's death the 
opinion had begun to obtain that Toronto was the proper place for the Theological 
College, but the dread of creating division in the interests of Woodstock, and the 
apparent impossibility of raising money to erect a college worthy of the denomina- 
tion in that growing city, made all shrink from the attempt. At that point, what 
had seemed utterly impossible was made practicable by Senator McMaster's liber- 
ality. This great philanthropist was born in the county of Tyrone, Ireland, in 1811. 
He received a good English education in a private school, and in 1833 came to Can- 
ada, at the age of twenty-two years. He soon entered upon a most successful and 
honorable mercantile career, in the wholesale dry-goods business, having first been 
a clerk and then a partner of Robert Cathcart. When Montreal was the great dis- 
tributing center for Western Canada, he was one of the few whose commercial en- 
terprise and ability transferred a share of the wholesale trade from that city to To- 
ronto. Having established his firm there and associated two of his nephews with 
himself his business became immense, until he retired from active partnership to 



5S4 



SENATOR McM ASTER. 



follow financial transactions, for which his foresight and sound judgment amply 
fitted him, so that he became one of the leading capitalists of the province. He has 
always been a Liberal in his politics, and in 1856 he was with much, reluctance 
induced to accept a nomination as a candidate for the Legislative Council of Canada. 
He was elected by a large majority, and at the Confederation was appointed to the 
Senate of the Dominion. 

Mr. McMaster has always taken a marked interest in the educational interests 
of Canada. In 1865 he was appointed a member of the Council of Public Instruc- 
tion, and, in 1873, he was 
made a Senator of the Pro- 
vincial University by Govern- 
ment appointment. All the 
educational enterprises of the 
Baptists have been aided 
largely by his wisdom and 
purse, being one of the largest 
subscribers to the Woodstock 
Institute ; and at the Mission- 
ary Convention of Ontario, 
held at St. Catharine's in 1879, 
it was resolved that, in view 
of certain proposals made by 
him, the Theological Depart- 
ment of the Institute at Wood- 
stock should be removed to 
Toronto. At once he pur- 
chased from the University 
of Toronto a plot of ground 
250 feet square, and immedi- 
ately erected thereon one of 
the most beautiful and complete college buildings in the country. He vested this 
property in a Board of Trustees in 1880, to be held in trust for the Baptist denomi- 
nation. At the first meeting of this Board Rev. J. H. Castle, D.D., was elected 
President of the College ; Bev. John Torrance, A.M., Professor of New Testament 
Exegesis and Apologetics, and at a subsequent meeting Professor A. H. Newman, 
D.D., LL.D., of Bochester Seminary, was chosen for the Chair of Church History 
and Old Testament Exegesis. A brief notice of several of our brethren who have 
done such splendid work in Canada must close this sketch of Baptists there. 

Dr. Castle was born at Milestown, Penn., in 1830, was baptized in 184-6, grad- 
uated from the Lewisburg University in 1851, and received his Doctor's degree 
from the same institution in 1866. He was settled as pastor at Pottsville, Pa., for 




JOHN H. CASTLE, D.D. 



DRS. CASTLE— TORRANCE— NEWMAN. 



sss 






two years and a half, when he accepted the charge of the First Baptist Church in 
West Philadelphia, where he remained for fourteen years. In 1873 he became 
pastor of the Bond Street Church, Toronto, when the beautiful structure known as 
the Jarvis Street Meeting-honse was erected for his congregation, Mr. McMaster 
contributing about $60,000 to the building fund. He declined the Principalship of 
Woodstock, and when its Theological Department was removed to Toronto all eyes 
turned to him as eminently fitted to become its President. This position he has filled, 
and the chair of Systematic Theology and Pastoral Theology, with great success. 

Professor Torrance, who first 
became Principal of the Woodstock 
Institution, had previously been a 
student there and a graduate of the 
Toronto University, but he died be- 
fore he could engage in the work of 
the new College. The report of the 
Trustees speaks of him as an accurate 
scholar ; ' his force and clearness as a 
thinker, the soundness of his views 
as a theologian, his aptness as a 
teacher, his reputation in the denom- 
ination, and his unflinching Christian 
integrity gave every reason to hope 
for him a long career of the highest 
usefulness.' 

Dr. Newman is a native of 
Edgefield County, S. C, and was 
born in 1852. He graduated from 
Mercer University, Georgia, in 1871, and from Eochester Theological Seminary in 
1875. He spent a year— 1875-76— in the Southern Baptist Theological Semi- 
nary, where, as resident graduate, he devoted himself to the study of Hebrew, 
Cbaldee, Syriac, Arabic and Patristic Greek. From 1877 to 1880 he was acting as Pro- 
fessor of Church History at Rochester, and in 1880-81 was Pettingill Professor in 
the same institution. He translated and edited Immer's ' Hermeneutics of the ISTew 
Testament,' published at Andover in 1877, and is the author of many review arti- 
cles, evidencing extensive research and critical acumen. He is justly regarded also 
as an authority in ecclesiastical history, especially in its relation to the principles 
and polity of the Baptists. If his valuable life is spared, Baptist literature will be 
greatly enriched by his fruitful pen. At present the Doctor is editing the Anti-Mani- 
chaean Treatises of St. Angustin,' with a revised translation, notes and an introduc- 
tion on the Manichaean Heresy. 

Malcolm Mac Vicar, Ph.D., LL.D., fills the vacancy left by the death of Pro- 
38 




DR. ALBERT H. NEWMAN". 



636 



DRS. MA C VICAR— CLARKE— BAND. 



fessor Torrance. He was Principal of the State Normal School at Ypsilanti, 
Mich., and his career as an educator has been successful and distinguished. He was 
born in Scotland in 1829, but in 1835 came to Chatham, in Ontario. He entered 
Knox College, Toronto, in 1850, with Donald, his brother, now Principal of the 
Presbyterian College in Montreal. While a student Malcolm's doctrinal views 
changed, he became a Baptist, and was ordained to the Baptist ministry in 1856. He 
graduated from Rochester University in 1859, from which time to 1863 he served as 

Professor of Mathematics, and from 
that date to 1867 as Principal of 
Brockport Collegiate Institute, 1ST. Y. 
From 1868 he was Superintendent 
of Public Schools in Leavenworth, 
Kan., then Principal of the Normal 
School in Potsdam, N. Y, before 
he went to the Normal School in 
Michigan. Dr. MacVicar is the 
author of several valuable text- 
books in arithmetic and geography. 
He excels as a mathematician and 
metaphysician, and has made a spe- 
cial study of the relations of science 
to religion. He is critical, original 
and enthusiastic. 

Eev. W. N. Clarke, D.D., was 
for many years pastor of the 
Churches at Newton Center, Mass., 
and at Montreal, but took the chair of New Testament Exegesis at Toronto in 1884. 
He brought broad views and a loving spirit to his work, and having published a most 
valuable commentary on one of the Gospels, he possesses special fitness for this high 
position. His compeer, Rev. D. M. Welton, D.D., Ph.D., an advanced scholar in 
the Oriental languages, fills the chair of Old Testament Exegesis. Dr. Welton is a 
graduate of Acadia, also of a celebrated German University, and was for some years 
the Principal of the Theological Department in Acadia College. 

Theodore H. Rand, M.A., D.C.L., was appointed to a chair in Toronto College 
in 1885-86. He is a graduate of Acadia, and was in succession the Superintendent 
of Education in Nova Scotia and in New Brunswick, in both of which provinces 
he inaugurated and kept in operation for a number of years the noble system of 
free schools which they now possess. He filled a chair also in Acadia before he 
removed to Toronto. The entire cost of sustaining all these professorships, in addi- 
tion to the large sum expended in building ' McMaster Hall ' and in endowing the 
President's chair, was cheerfully assumed by Mr. McMaster. 




DR. MAtnOLM MACVTCAR. 



AUSTRALIAN BAPTISTS. SS7 

Rev. N. Wolverton, B.A., was appointed Principal at Woodstock after the resig- 
nation of Mr. Torrance. He had previously obtained and collected pledges for its 
endowment to the amount of $40,000, with the intention of raising the amount to 
$100,000. For some time Senator McMaster had purposed to thoroughly equip an 
Arts College in connection with the University of Toronto, but has now determined 
to devote this handsome endowment to the Woodstock foundation. In view of this 
great work, Dr. Rand has been induced to accept the Principalship of Woodstock, 
while Professor Wolverton will devote all his time to its financial management. 
Mr. McMaster stipulated that $56,000 should be raised by the denomination for new 
buildings and other improvements, of which sum $50,000 has been raised, and a new 
impulse has been given to Baptist educational enterprises all through Canada. Uni- 
versity powers will be sought for Woodstock College, and the corner-stone of the 
splendid new college building was laid at Woodstock, October 22, 1886, by Mrs. 
Wm. McMaster, when addresses were delivered by Dr. Rand and Dr. McArthur, of 
New York. The progress and development of the Baptists in Canada for the last 
quarter of a century have been wonderful, and they bid fair to make greater advance- 
ment still for the coming generation. Without referring to particular pages, it 
may suffice to say that the above facts have been collected chiefly from ' Cramp's 
History,' ' Benedict's History,' ' Bill's Fifty Years in the Maritime Provinces,' min- 
utes of Associations, Missionary Reports, Memorials of Acadia College and the 
Canadian Year-Books. 

Australasia proper comprises New South Wales, Victoria, South and North 
Australia, Queensland and West Australia, covering about 3,000,000 square miles. 
Captain Cook discovered New South Wales in 1770, and slowly British subjects have 
settled the greater part of the continent, while the aboriginals have largely decreased. 
Rev. John Saunders may he regarded as the founder of Baptists in Australia. At 
the age of seventeen he became a member of a Baptist Church at Camberwell, in 
London, and renounced every opportunity to take a seat in Parliament, preferring 
labor for Christ. After establishing two Churches in London, his heart was set on 
planting a Christian colony in that stronghold of idolatry and other wickedness, 
Botany Bay. On reaching Sidney, in 1834, he commenced to preach in the most 
fervid and powerful manner in the Court-house, where crowds flocked to hear him. 
He soon formed the Bathhurst Street Church and remained its pastor till 1848, when 
his health broke. He then retired from the pastorate and died in 1859. The loss 
of so vigorous a leader dampened the courage of his Church, but it revived under 
the new leadership of Rev. James Voller, whose labors were greatly blessed, and an 
Association was formed, so that now the Baptist force is most earnest and vigorous in 
New South Wales. The number of Churches is 22, the number of members, 1,196. 

Victoria. The Baptist cause was planted there by Rev. William Ham, in 1845. 
when the first Church was formed. This pioneer labored under the greatest difficul- 
ties, but a church edifice was built in Collins Street, Melbourne, in which he labored 



SS8 VICTORIA AND SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 

for some years. Little progress was made, however, until 1856, when the Rev. 
James Taylor, of Glasgow, took the pastoral oversight. His scriptural and logical 
preaching, accompanied by a peculiar unction from above, soon drew large audiences, 
so that the congregation removed to the Grand Opera House, which seated 2,000 
people, and yet was too small for the throng. Soon, a large and beautiful church 
edifice was built, which is now the rallying point for the annual gatherings of our 
Churches in the colony. Mr. Taylor is still preaching to an earnest Church at 
Richmond, a suburb of Melbourne. Two sons of Mr. Ham are amongst the most 
liberal supporters of the denomination in the colony ; the eldest acted as chairman 
of the Victorian Baptist Association at its session a year ago. A second Church 
was organized in Melbourne, which was under the pastoral care of Rev. W. P. 
Scott till his death, in 1856 ,- and when the great gold discovery demoralized the 
community, the Missionary Society in England, at the earnest request of the Church 
for a suitable pastor, sent the Rev. Isaac New to fill the vacancy. At that time, 
Melbourne was shaping itself into a magnificent city, with many social refine- 
ments and educational institutions ; and the pulpits of all denominations were being 
filled with preachers of a high order. Mr. New's finished thought and fresh delivery 
attracted great congregations, and in 1859 the elegant chapel in Albert Street was 
erected for this Church. But in ten years, failing health compelled this great 
preacher to retire from his work, and in 1886 he fell asleep in Christ. There are 
100 preaching places in Yictoria and about 15,000 persons who enjoy the services of 
their ministers, the membership of the Churches being nearly 6,000, and the number 
of Sunday-school scholars about 9,000. Our Churches there are in a flourishing 
condition and number 39, with a membership of 4,235. Rev. S. Chapman, the 
present pastor of Collins Street, is a most successful minister, who has set his heart 
on raising $250,000 for home mission purposes with every indication of success. He 
proposes to establish an inter-Colonial College, to form a building fund for opening 
new fields and to aid struggling Churches in town and country. 

South Australia. Before Mr. Scott settled in Melbourne, he spent two years 
as pastor in this colony. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Flinders Street Church, 
Adelaide, was held in September, 1886, at which it was reported that since its organ- 
ization 1,581 members had been added to that Church, and its average fiscal income 
had been $10,000 per annum. Dr. Silas Mead has rendered great service to the 
denomination during a quarter of a century, but the Baptists are not strong in the 
colony. The denomination has lacked compact organization, many of its members 
preferring isolation to combined activity. For the present, many of the other 
denominations are in advance of the Baptists, because they have accepted State aid 
and the appropriations of large plots of land for ecclesiastical purposes, which offers 
Baptists have declined on principle. The number of Churches is 52, the member- 
ship of the Associated Baptist Churches in South Australia is 5;190, Sabbath-school 
scholars 5,191. 



QUEENSLAND— NEW ZEALAND— TASMANIA. 589 

Queensland. There were no Baptists in this colony in the old convict days, 
when the incorrigible from Port Jackson, New South "Wales, were sent to Moreton 
Bay. But immediately upon the settlement of free persons a Church was estab- 
lished. Mr. Stewart preached for some time in the Court-house, he being followed 
by Rev. B. G. Wilson, in 1856, when a substantial chapel was built in Wharf Street, 
but a much larger and more beautiful building is now in course of erection. The 
Churches number 13, and have all sprung from this one Church, the Baptist Church 
membership of the colony being 1,355, with Sunday-school scholars under their care 
to the number of about 2,000. 

New Zealand. The principal Churches of this colony are at Dunedin, the 
capital in the South Island, and Auckland, the principal city of the North Island. 
The present pastor of the Church at Auckland is Rev. Thomas Spurgeon, son of 
the London divine. A Tabernacle, seating 1,500 people, has been opened, which is 
too small for the multitude who throng to hear him. This Church was organized 
by Rev. J. Thornton, and a few miles south-east of Auckland, Rev. Josiah Hinton, 
a son of the late John Howard Hinton, of London, is laboring earnestly. Flourishing 
young Churches are found, also, at Wellington, the capital, at Christ Church, Nelson 
and other places. About 50,000 only of the Maoris, the aborigines, are left, and the 
Baptists are doing something to bring them to Christ. Froude says that gunpowder, 
rum and tobacco have ruined this once noble race, which is so fast melting away 
before civilization. In the two Islands we have 23 Churches, and 2,39S members. 

Tasmania. Rev. H. Howling left Colchester, England, for this field in 1831 ; 
it was then known as Van Diemen's Land. He commenced at once to proclaim the 
Gospel, and for thirty-five years continued to preach in this beautiful Island. But 
the struggle was hard as well as long, for at present there are but 8 Churches with 
404 communicants in the colony, and 625 scholars in the Sunday-schools. William 
Gibson, Esq., and his son, have recently built and presented to the denomination 
four beautiful church edifices, one at Launceston, with a seating capacity of 1,500, 
the others are at Perth, Deloraine and Longford. 

Although there are no Baptists in Western Australia, the progress made in the 
other colonies within the last ten years presents an encouraging feature in the 
ecclesiastical life of Australasia. Everywhere, heroic effort is made and new plans 
are projected for more thorough work. Men of large ability and experience are 
prosecuting these plans. James Martin, who was pastor of the Collins Street Church, 
Melbourne, for seven years, did much for our Churches, both as a preacher and 
writer; his name, with those of William Poole, David Rees, George Slade, Henry 
Langdon and Alexander Shain, has done much to stimulate the consecration of 
Baptists there, and others of equally heroic devotion are ready to enter into their 
labors full of work and full of hope. The denominational papers in Australasia, 
are 'The Banner of Truth,' in New South Wales; 'The Freeman,' in Queensland; 
and in South Australia, ' Truth and Progress.' 



S60 PERILS OF FALSE INTERPRETATION. 

And now, having traced the stream of truth in its flow from Bethlehem to 
this newest discovered end of the earth, which, though the largest Island in the 
world, may not improperly be called a continent, and has, because of its vast extent, 
been called the 'fifth quarter of the world,' we see how nearly primitive Christianity 
belts the globe in its new embrace of ' Southern Asia,' This history shows the 
extreme jealousy of the Baptists for the honor of Scripture as the revelation of 
Christ's will. For this they have endured all their sufferings, each pain evincing 
their love to him and their zeal to maintain his will according to the Scriptures. It 
appears to be as true of error as it is of the truth itself, that a little leaven ' leadens 
the whole lump,' when once it comes into juxtaposition with the genuine meal and 
the fermenting process takes up one single particle. Every individual error which 
has crept into the Churches since the times of the Apostles is directly traceable to a 
perversion of Scripture, and generally corruption of doctrine has come by the mis- 
interpretation of Scripture. In most cases the rise of divergence from the Bible 
sense can be traced not only to a change of manner, however slight, but also tc 
that change at a given point of time, and from these they have run to the verj 
opposite of Christ's teaching and example. A marked illustration of this is found 
in both the Christian ordinances. Take, for example, the Supper. Our Lord insti j 
tuted it in the evening and after he and his disciples had eaten the roasted paschal 
lamb with bread and herbs. But as if for sheer contradiction of Christ, in the 
days of Cyprian and Augustine, the Churches came to the notion that the Supper 
should be forbidden in the evening and taken in the morning while fasting. The 
pretense was, that reverence for Christ would not allow its elements to mingle with 
common food. So perfectly fanatical did men become in this perversion, that 
Walafrid Strabo said: 'The Church has enjoined on us to act in the teeth of 
Christ's example and we must obey the Church.' He was the Abbot of Reichenau, 
A. D. 842, no mean authority ; and a prolific writer, whose works, says Beuss, ' for 
several centuries formed the principal source and the highest authority of biblical 
science in the Latin Church, and were used down to the seventeenth century.' Dr. 
Hebbert says of him : ' He turns the argument round, aud puts it that those 
who think our Lord's example ought to be followed are calumniating the Church 
in assuming that the Church would or could give a wrong order in such a thing ! ' 

So, the bulwark of infant baptism has been found in the words of Jesus : 
' Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the 
kingdom of heaven,' despite the fact that one Apostle says, that he ' blessed them ' 
and ' prayed for them,' but so far from saying that he baptized them, another is care- 
ful to say, that ' Jesus baptized not.' Exactly in the same way infallible headship is 
attributed to the Pope, from a false interpretation of the words : ' Thou art Peter, 
and upon this rock will I build my Church.' The power of priestly absolution is 
claimed on a perversion of the words : ' Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remit- 
ted to them.' By the same forced construction, auricular confession is extorted from 



SCRIPTURE THE INFALLIBLE TEST. 36 1 

the passage 'Confess your faults one to another;' extreme unction, from a false 
use of the passage: 'Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the 
Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil, . . . and the Lord 
shall raise him up ; ' but this office is not done till the man is dying. Purgatory is 
drawn from the abused passage which speaks of Christ preaching to ' the spirits in 
prison;' the right of private judgment is denied because Peter said : 'No prophecy 
of Scripture is of private interpretation ; ' and the worship of Mary is enforced 
because it is written : ' Blessed art thou among women.' The tortures of the Inqui- 
sition are justified because Paul said that he delivered Hymeneus and Alexander 
' over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme,' and the burning of heretics, by 
the words of the same Apostle when he instructed the Corinthians to deliver the 
fornicator to ' Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved 
in the day of the Lord Jesus.' The truth can only be conserved by holding it in 
righteousness, without wresting it from its natural testimony and obliging it to do 
duty in enforcing the traditions of men. For this reason Baptists must ever keep 
the doctrines of Jesus and his ordinances, and the order of his Church, as they 
were delivered unto them, being faithful unto the death. 

This narrative makes it clear that the principles of New Testament Christianity 
have never been wholly eradicated from the consciousness of some Christians in 
history. When perversions and abuses have multiplied, and the most godly men 
have feared that a pure and spiritual Christianity was about to perish from the 
earth, God has not left himself without witnesses, who have appealed to the au- 
thority of his word against the corruptions of their age. Their testimony has been 
as enlivening as a gust of fresh air, fanning the latent spark of religious life into a 
blaze. When the purest organic communities have been interrupted and broken, 
the truth has never compromised itself any more than its Author has compromised 
himself. With more or less distinctness, individual believers have ever maintained 
the teachings of Christ. Their spirits have been emancipated from mere ecclesi- 
astical authority, as they have sought with honest hearts to learn and to do the will 
of God revealed in the Bible. In doing this they have been the worthy successors 
of the Bible Baptists. 

These historical facts should give new hope to the Gospel Churches of our own 
times. Many who claim to be actuated by the scientific spirit and methods of 
our day, have proclaimed open hostility to all forms of assumed privilege and 
prescription. No institution, however venerable, can hold its own against this com- 
bination, unless it can show a valid reason for its existence. Many signs show that 
this attack will not cease until social order and possibly civil government have been 
fundamentally reconstructed. The Churches of Christ must also meet this assault. 
More and more their doctrines and observances must be called in question, and in 
so far as they are justified by an appeal to ancient traditions and usages, to old or- 
ganizations and their authority, the advance of the modern spirit will prevail 



562 CLOSING BEMARKS. 

against them. Only those Churches which stand firmly upon the New Testament, 
holding no faith or practice but what it enjoins, will stand in a position that cannot 
be successfully assailed until their great Divine Charter is demonstrated to be of 
human origin. When the New Testament, which has survived in immortal youth 
and strength, despite all destructive forces, has been torn into shreds, then those 
Churches will wane, but not till then. Baptists have taken this impregnable po- 
sition, and so long as they hold it, sophistry and contempt, either from Christians or 
skeptics, can storm their fortress uo sooner than a handful of snow-flakes can storm 
Gibraltar. Such attacks will simply make manifest the strength and simplicity of 
the faith once delivered to the saints. They must fail when the word of God fails, 
but not till then ; for God will honor them so long as they honor his word. 

The author's work is now done ; and he here expresses devout gratitude to the 
Father of mercies for the health given him to finish his labor of love for the truth's 
sake. This work is now laid at his Master's feet as a tribute to the truth, for the 
edification of all who love the truth as Jesus revealed it in its fullness. It is tend- 
ered for the examination of all loving and candid Christians, regardless of name, 
with the fervent desire that it may be approved by the great Shepherd of the one 
flock, as an honest and faithful presentation of that truth which he promised should 
make his people free indeed. The writer's profound respect for other Christian 
denominations has not allowed him to utter a disrespectful word of them, however 
widely his views and theirs may differ on subjects which we hold to be very im- 
portant. They are no more to blame either for the mistakes or faults of their 
forefathers, than Baptists are for the blunders or defects of their forefathers. 
When the countless millions of Christ's disciples meet our common Lord above, he 
will lovingly tell us which of us were right and which were wrong. If he sliall 
say, 'My Baptist followers were mistaken in this or in that,' it will be their privi- 
lege to thank him for saving them despite these failures. And if he shall say, ' My 
Pedobaptist followers were mistaken in this or in that,' the most ill-natured reply that 
any true Baptist can make will be : ' Dear brethren, we always told you so.' Then, 
for our eternal salvation, we shall all heartily sing together, 'Unto him who hath 
loved us and redeemed us unto God, unto him be glory for ever and ever. Amen/ 



A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER, 



TEEATING OF BAPTIST GEOWTH FOE THE LAST FIVE YEAES. 

GREAT BRITAIN. 

THE first edition of this history bears date of January 1, 1887 ; and the publisher 
now desire a short chapter showing the progress of the Baptists since that 
time. As the author spent the summer of 1888 in Great Britain, he took special 
pains to collect the necessary materials to that end. A gradual increase is manifest 
in every section of the denomination there, but in none of them is this more marked 
than amongst the body known as, ' The New Connexion of General Baptists.' This 
branch of our people in England has had a very remarkable history, and as so little 
is said of them elsewhere in this book, it is desirable to give a brief sketch of them 
here. 

Most of the earliest Baptist churches of England were known as ' General Bap- 
tists,' including those at Ep worth and Butterwiek (1599), that at Misterton (1610) ; , 
and that in London, under the pastoral care of Helwys (1612-14). To a certain 
extent the New Connexion is an outgrowth of those earlier bodies which held to the 
doctrine of a general atonement, but only to a limited extent. The great strength of 
that branch of Baptists, however, is the direct outcome of an astonishing revival of 
religion which was granted to the Midland counties and Yorkshire, about the middle 
of the eighteenth century. David Taylor, a servant of Lady Huntingdon, had been 
brought to Christ, and began, with her ladyship's sanction, to preach the Gospel in 
Glenfield and Ratby, villages not far from her residence at Donington Park, 
Leicestershire. Samuel Deacon, of Ratby, and Joseph Donisthorpe, of Norma nton, 
together with John Whyatt and John Aldridge, of Barton Fabis, were converted. 
After all sorts of struggles to attain and hold the truth, and after the most brutal 
persecution, they found themselves with their converts drifting fast toward Baptist 
principles and positions. For about twelve years they practiced infant immersion, 
but finally discovered that the New Testament required the baptism of believers 
only, and in November, 1755, between sixty and seventy of them were buried with 
Christ in baptism. Last of all, they organized many of their societies into churches, 
so that in 1760 these were known as distinct and independent bodies at Barton, 
Loughborough, Melbourn, Kegworth, and Kirby-Woodhouse. The distinguished 
Abraham Booth became pastor of the interest at Kirby-Woodhouse in 1760. The 
society formed at Barton in 1715, consisting of but seven members, had so spread in 
1770 that the little one had become six churches with more than 950 members, 10 



564 GREAT BRITAIN. 

ordained pastors, 7 ruling elders, and 24 deacons. This work spread over a large 
part of the counties of Leicester, Warwick, Derby and Nottingham. 

A second branch of the New Connexion came into being in Yorkshire in cpiite 
as distinct and peculiar a manner. Dan Taylor was born at Sour-milk Hall, near 
Halifax, Dec. 21, 1738. His father was a miner, and when but five years of age 
Dan worked with his father in a coal-pit three hundred feet deep. By that time his 
mother had taught him to read the Bible, and as he grew up he had the privilege 
of hearing Wesley and Whitefield preach, by walking twenty or thirty miles for that 
purpose. It was also his common practice to trudge for miles over the moors to 
listen to the preaching of William Grimshaw, at Haworth, afterwards the celebrated 
home of Charlotte Bronte and her sisters. Taylor became a Methodist, and was 
pressed to become an itinerant minister under the direction of Wesley, but this he 
refused to do, preferring to labor amongst the ignorant and depraved of his own neigh- 
borhood and the wild moorlands. He, therefore, seceded from the Wesleyans and 
began to preach under a tree at a place called the Nook, in Wadsworth. As the 
winter of 1762 approached, he left the coal-mine and hired a room in which he kept 
a school through the week, preaching there on the Sabbath. He could not unite 
with the Independents because of their views of particular redemption, and he knew 
nothing personally of Baptists of any school. The question of baptism, however, 
arose in his small society, and he procured Dr. Wall's ' History of Infant Baptism ' 
for examination, which, he says, ' contributed more than any other book, except the 
New Testament, to convince ' him ' that infant baptism has no foundation in Script- 
ure, but is wholly an invention of man.' He then applied to a Particular Baptist 
minister to immerse him, but was refused because of his views of a general atone- 
ment. He was told, however, of a General Baptist at Boston, in Lincolnshire, a distance 
of one hundred and twenty miles from his home, who, he thought might baptize him. 
In the depth of winter he started to walk that distance, in company with John 
Slater ; but learning that there was a General Baptist church at Gamston, near Bet- 
ford, he repaired there, and was immersed in the river Idle, on Feb. 16, by Mr. 
Jeffrey. Soon after this a church of that faith was formed at Wadsworth number- 
ing fourteen members, a meeting-house was built on Birch Cliff, which gave that 
name to the church, and under his labors the work spread in every direction. 

Soon these scattered churches felt the need of a closer union, and Mr. Taylor, 
having heard of the Leicestershire General Baptists, visited them. After long inter- 
change of views it was found that some of the General Baptists of Lincolnshire had 
become so thoroughly Unitarian in their doctrinal views that it was needful to sepa- 
rate from them, and it was resolved that a New Connexion should be formed of 
those only who held evangelical doctrines. For the purpose of forming this new 
body a convention met in London in June, 1770. Several churches of the old Gen- 
eral Baptists in and about London joined in the movement with these Midland and 
Northern churches, and six Articles of Faith were adopted as the basis of their union. 



NEW CONNEXION BAPTISTS. 565 

This is the body which has now grown to be so powerful in the Baptist life of 
England. The 119th annual meeting of the Association of the Baptists of the New 
Connexion met at Derby in June, 1888, reporting that at that time their churches 
numbered 203, including foreign mission churches ; pastors and missionaries, 119 ; 
and members, 27,832. They are zealous in mission work, having missionaries in 
Orissa (Southern Bengal), and Borne. Their Foreign Mission Society was formed 
in 1816. chiefly in response to the appeals of Rev. J. G. Bike, of Derby ; and in 1888 
they expended £8,107, Is. Id. on the foreign field. They have various funds, among 
them one for home missions and another for educational purposes. Their college, 
now located at Nottingham, was founded in 1797, under the tutorship of Dan 
Taylor, and has been conducted at different times since in London, "Wisbech, Lough- 
borough, Leicester and Nottingham. In 1861, it was moved to Chilwell, but was re- 
moved back to Nottingham in 1883. The pupils study the classics and philosophy 
at the university college at Nottingham, which is an undenominational institution. 
Rev. T. Witton Davies, B.A., an accomplished minister and gentleman, is principal 
of the Baptist College. The publications of the General Baptists are the ' Baptist 
Hymnal,' the ' School Hymnal,' and a ' Tune Book,' together with the ' General Bap- 
tist Magazine,' under the able editorial guidance of Rev. W. R. Stevenson, M.A., 
and of Rev. J. Fletcher. This monthly was first published in 1799, and has a large 
circulation. Mr. Stevenson is also the Secretary of the General Baptist Bublication 
Board, and a member of a board of literary men, numbering about twenty, who for 
years have been compiling a ' Dictionary of Hymnology.' He has prepared a very 
valuable article on ' Hymnology and Missions,' and also several interesting sketches 
of hymn writers, from somo of which Dr. Burrage has quoted in his late work on 
' Baptist Hymn Writers and Their Hymns.' Samuel and John Deacon, President 
Thomas Goadby, E. H. Jackson, and Amos Sutton have all given excellent contri- 
butions to our hymns, and the New Connexion has raised up a splendid body of men. 
In addition to those already spoken of, no names stand higher than those of the late 
Dr. Jabez Burns, the Bikes and the Goadbys. Dr. Samuel Cox, the learned editor 
of the ' Expositor,' is a notable member, as are also the eloquent Dr. John Clifford, 
Dr. Dawson Burns, "W. H. Tetley, and others of great influence. The General Bap- 
tists are members of the Baptist Union in common with the Particular Baptists, 
and Dr. Clifford is now the president of the Union. The New Connexion is very 
strong in the Midland counties, especially in and around Nottingham; there are 
fifteen Baptist churches in that borough, but eleven of them are of this flourishing 
order. In 1892 the General and Particular Baptists became one body. 

Baptists of Great Britain are now in a prosperous condition, although during 
the last five years the Baptist Union has passed through a warm controversy. Some 
few of its members have adopted views on certain doctrinal points which are not 
held by the members generally, and Mr. Spurgeon complained of this in his maga- 
zine. ' The Sword and Trowel,' for November, 1887, thus : 



566 MB. SPURGEON. 

' As a matter of fact, believers in Christ's atonement are now in declared religious 
union with those who make light of it ; believers in Holy Scripture are in confederacy 
with those who deny plenary inspiration ; those who hold evangelical doctrine are in 
open alliance with those who call the fall a fable, who deny the personality of the 
Holy Ghost, who call justification by faith immoral, and hold that there is another 
probation after death, and a future restitution for the lost. . . . To be very plain, we 
are unable to call these things Christian Unions, they begin to look like Confederacies 
In Evil. Before the face of God we fear that they wear no other aspect. To our 
inmost heart this is a sad truth from which we cannot break away. . . . We retire 
at once and distinctly from the Baptist Union.' 

On the 28th of October, 1887-, Mr. Spurgeon sent a letter to the Secretary of the 
Union, withdrawing from that body, and on December 13, 1887, a special meeting of 
the Council was held to consider his resignation. The Council expressed its deepest 
regret at his retirement, and appointed Rev. Drs. Culross, Maclaren, Clifford and 
Booth to visit him personally, ' that they may deliberate with him as to how the 
unity of our Denomination in truth and love and good works may best be maintained.' 
These brethren, excepting Dr. Maclaren, who was ill, held a conference with Mr. 
Spurgeon on January 13th, 1888, and reported to the Council, on the 18th of the same 
month, as follows : 

' We have to report, 1st. That Mr. Spurgeon could not see his way clear to with- 
draw his resignation. 2nd. That with a view to the deliberation proposed by the 
Council, Mr. Spurgeon handed to the deputation the following statement, which he 
had previously prepared : " In answer to the question, What I would advise as likely 
to promote permanent union in truth, love, and good works, I should answer: 
(1) Let the Union have a simple basis of Bible truths. These are usually described 
as ' evangelical doctrines.' (2) I know of no better summary of these than that 
adopted by the Evangelical Alliance and subscribed by members of so many religious 
communities for several years. The exact words need not be used, of course ; but 
that formula indicates the run of truth which is most generally followed among us, 
and should be so followed. (3) I greatly rejoice in the declaration proposed by 
Dr. Angus, so far as it goes, but its omissions will suggest as much as its assertions. 
(Signed) C. H. Spurgeon." 3rd. That Mr. Spurgeon stated that he would not under- 
take, on these conditions being complied with by the Union, to rejoin it. He would 
wait and see how it worked. 4th. That as to the Baptist Union being a confederacy 
in evil, he did not think that it was " knowingly so." He added : " Mark my words : 
To be very plain, we are unable to call these things Christian Unions ; they begin to 
look like confederacies in evil." 5th. That in reply to the question asking for names 
and evidence of men unfaithful to the Gospel, Mr. Spurgeon positively declined to 
give the names of any brethren, because he did not believe there is any power uuder 
our Constitution for dealing with the utmost divergence of doctrinal opinion.' 

The report was adopted by the Council and Mr. Spurgeon's resignation was 
accepted. On February 21st, 1888, and on several other days, the Council met to 
mature the following Declaration of Faith, which was finally submitted to the Uni^n 
itself, when it convened in London, April 25, 1888. 

'Whilst expressly disavowing and disallowing any power to control belief or to 
restrict inquiry, yet in view of the uneasiness produced in the churches by recent 
discussions, and to show an agreement with one another, and with our fellow- 
Christians on the great truths of the Gospel, the Council deem it right to say that— 



'DOWN-GRADE' CONTROVERSY, 567 

(a) Bajjtized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, 
we have avowed repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ — the 
very elements of a new life ; as in the Supper we avow our union with one another, 
while partaking of the symbol of the body of our Lord, broken for us, and of the 
blood shed for the remission of sins. The Union, therefore, is an association of 
churches and ministers, professing not only to believe the facts and doctrines of the 
Gospel, but to have undergone the spiritual change expressed or implied in them. 
This change is the fundamental principle of our church fife. 

(b) The following facts and doctrines are commonly believed by the churches of 
the Union : 

1. Tbe Divine Inspiration and Authority of the Holy Scripture as the supreme 
and sufficient rule of our faith and practice ; and the right and duty of individual 

Sdgment in the interpretation of it. 2. The fallen and sinful state of man. 3. The 
eity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and his Sacrificial 
and Mediatorial Work. 4. Justification by faith — a faith that works by love and 
produces holiness. 5. The work of the Holy Spirit in the conversion of sinners, and 
in the sanctification of all who believe. 6. The Resurrection ; the Judgment of the 
Last Day, according to the words of our Lord in Matt. xxv. 46.' a 

This report was adopted by the Union, seven members only voting in the 
negative. It is not necessary to give the ' Down Grade ' controversy fuller considera- 
tion, to a proper understanding of the case, but it may be added that Mr. Spurgeon 
declined to name individuals in the Union whom he thought had departed from the 
faith, on the ground that they had avowed their sentiments before the Union itself, 
so that the entire body knew their opinions as well as he did. He and others with- 
drew from the London Baptist Association as well as from the Union, but they retain 
'all their Baptist principles as strenuously as ever, with the purpose of firmly main- 
taining their full associational life in the Denomination as heretofore. Sympathy 
with Mr. Spurgeon's doctrines is the rule, while money to support his church, his 
college and his orphanages is furnished as abundantly as ever, and at the same time 
the vigor of the Union appears to be essentially unimpaired by the controversy. 

The missionary zeal of the English Baptists is as great as ever, their field in- 
cluding India, Ceylon, China, Japan, Palestine, Europe, Africa and the "West Indies. 
The Baptist Missionary Society early became interested in the West Indies, and they 
have been rewarded with great success. In the West Indies and Bermuda there are 
now nearly 40,000 Baptists, and the missions there are practically self-sustaining. 
Preachers are sent forth from the Baptist College in Jamaica, not only to supply the 
needs of the home churches, but to enter on mission work in Africa, under the 
auspices of the English and American Baptists. In the Congo Free State they have 
a strong mission, employing thirty-six missionaries, side by side with their American 
brethren. The increase of converts in Africa is not large, but the churches in the 
West Indies have added to their membership about 1,000 a year, for the past few years. 

The English Baptist Missionary Society has recently entered on mission work 

1 ' It should be stated, as a historical fact, that there have been brethren in the Union, working cordially 
with it, who, while reverently bowing to the authority of Holy Scripture, and rejecting the dogma of 
Purgatory and Universalism, have not held the common interpretation of these words of our Lord.' 



S68 WALES. 

in the North of China. In the various parts of China they have now twenty-one 
missionaries. Some of these have adopted the Chinese dress, and to a certain extent 
have assimilated themselves to the native mode of life. A mission has also been 
established in Japan, where they have three missionaries. 

Their older missions in India and Ceylon are still in a nourishing condition. 
They support 63 missionaries in those fields, with 38 evangelists and 58 teachers. 
The whole number of missionaries employed by the Society is 128, being an increase 
of 6 for the last five years ; and of evangelists 778, being an increase for the same 
period of 79. The entire number of communicants in the mission churches is 
50,875, being a large increase for the same length of time. The total expenditure 
for the year ending March 31st, 1891, was £72,729 8s. 3d. During the last year the 
Society has been celebrating its centennial year, and has now collected a special 
fund of £110,000 for missionary purposes, besides its ordinary receipts. 

Wales. — During the summer of 1888 the writer had the unspeakable pleasure 
of visiting the Welsh Baptist Colleges at Llangollen and at Pontypool, and of ad- 
dressing them ; as well as the privilege of preaching in several of the Welsh churches. 
The Principal at Pontypool, Rev. William Edwards, B.A., D.D., is assisted by J. M. 
Davis, M.A., as Classical Tutor. The present number of theological students is 22, 
and the expenditure of money in supporting the Institution for the year ending May, 
1891, was, £1,258 lis. 3d. This sacred spot in South Wales is in the center of an 
overshadowing Baptist influence, and is a power for the maintenance of our principles 
there. Since the death of the lamented Dr. Hugh Jones, the Principalship of Llan- 
gollen College has fallen on Rev. Gethin Davies, D.D., aided by Rev. Silas Morris, 
M.A., as Classical Tutor. The College has now 23 students, but since 1862 it has 
given 143 ministers to the churches. 

The venerable Thomas Davies, D.D., is still the President and Theological Tutor 
at the College in Haverfordwest, assisted by Rev. T. Witton Davies, B. A., as Classical, 
Hebrew, and Mathematical Tutor. Eighteen students are under their care, but since 
the year 1839 this school of the prophets has given 284 ministers to Wales. These 
three institutions are, therefore, now preparing 63 students to preach the Word of 
God, besides a number of others who are studying in the Baptist College at Bristol, 
under the direction of Rev. James Culross, D.D. During the last five years the 
Baptist College System in Wales has been closely canvassed, with the design of 
merging the three institutions into two : one for North Wales, where the Baptists are 
fewer, and one for South Wales, where they are more numerous. On page 257 of 
this work mention is made of the Universities of the Principality, but it would be 
more accurate to call these seats of learning University Colleges. It is there that the 
advanced students of the Baptist Colleges pursue the Arts course with a view to 
graduation. There are now two from Pontypool at Cardiff, two from Haverfordwest 
at Aberystwith, and two from Llangollen at Bangor. 

The Welsh commonly distinguish their Baptist churches by the titles Welsh 



SCOTLAND. 569 

and English churches ; all of the first class use the "Welsh tongue and are strict in 
their communion, while the latter use the English language in their services and are 
mostly free communion. The present number of Baptist churches in Wales is 745, 
with 92,394 communicants, and the number of Sunday-school scholars and teachers 
under their care is 106,987. 

Simon Jones, Esq., of Wrexham, afforded the writer much gratification in 
visiting with him the scene of the slaughter of the monks, at Bangor, Isycoed, 
A.D. 613. Many interesting relics are found in the neighborhood, the chief of 
which are the foundations of the ancient monastery, which are almost touched by 
the river Dee. There also the fishermen still, in fishing for salmon, use the coracle 
used by the Egyptians, this being, perhaps, the only place in Britain where it is now- 
known. The same gentleman, in company with Rev. T. Shankland, of Mold, Flint- 
shire, kindly accompanied the writer to the baptistery in which Vavasor Powell was 
immersed. It is in the Rhual Park, near Mold, and is in a state of perfect preserva- 
tion. It was built around a spring, in heavy stone-work, by Dr. Edwards, at that time 
owner of the estate, who was a sturdy Baptist, ready to protect and bless the worthy 
itinerant. Beautiful trees shade it on all sides, and in the olden times it was the 
baptistery of the neighborhood, as were the Callington and other wells, in Cornwall. 

Scotland. — The Baptists in Scotland use the term 'Scotch Baptists' in a 
technical sense, as indicating only those who hold the doctrines and church order of 
the late Archibald McLean. This body, however, is decreasing in numbers in Scot- 
land, although there are a few left. Some practices once advocated only by them 
prevail now in other churches, especiall} 7 what is termed the ' lay element.' The 
largest of these churches is known as the Bristo Place Church, Edinburgh, of which 
Rev. "William Grant is now pastor, its membership numbering 577. The other Bap- 
tist churches in Scotland are commonly known as 'English Baptist Churches,' having 
pastors set apart for the ministry. ' The Baptist Association of Scotland,' which was 
formed in 1856, has been dissolved, and its place is now occupied by the 'Baptist 
Union of Scotland,' of which Rev. W. Landels, D.D., is President. Rev. George 
Yuille, of Sterling, the present Secretary of the Union, reports that it now numbers 
104 churches, with 90 pastors in charge, and 12,304 members. This represents a 
growth within the last two years of 5 churches and 1,610 members. Many new 
churches have been formed and more chapels built since 1869, for the Union has 
consolidated the Denomination in Scotland and promoted its principles as never 
before. Its Building and other Funds represent a value of £9,754, and its annual 
income, derived from the churches and donations, is about £1,300. There are 
Baptist churches which are not in the Union. A paper read at the Annual Meeting 
in October, 1888, estimates the Baptists of Scotland at 15,000, which is deemed a 
moderate estimate, including all the mission stations in the Islands and Highlands. 
The churches are far less given to 'splitting' than they used to be, and have just 
passed through a keen educational controversy, which at one time threatened to 



S70 IRELAND. 

divide them in their work ; but that has been averted, and they are now more united 
in conducting all their enterprises than ever. What is known as the ' Theological 
Hall of the Baptists' Union,' under the tutorship of Revs. J. McLellan, W. Landels, 
D.D., and S. G. Woodrow, aids students in Theology who take the Arts Classes and 
Hebrew in the Scottish Universities. 

Ireland. — The Irish Baptists barely hold on their course. Twenty-five 
churches are reported, large and small, but most of them are very small. The total 
of members in Ireland is 1,847, and of pastors, 12. 

During the last five years many laymen and pastors of mark in the churches of 
Great Britain have been removed by death, notably amongst them, Rev. Thomas 
Price, M.A., Ph.D., who died February 29th, 1888. He began to preach in 1837, and 
left the college at Pontypool in 1815 to become pastor at Aberdare. He was a most 
active disciple of Christ, having baptized 1,596 believers and done an immense 
amount of work in all directions. He was very fluent as a speaker, and visited 
America, in 1869, on behalf of the Baptist Missionary Society. Space fails to 
enlarge this list, but it is meet to mention Thomas Spencer Baynes, LL.D., who is 
spoken of on page 227, and who has gone to his rest since that sketch was written. 
He was the son of a distinguished Baptist minister in Wellington, Somerset. Not 
only was he Professor in St. Andrews, but he was an editor of the present edition 
of the ' Encyclopedia Britannica,' and wrote some of its most valuable articles. He 
was also for years on the staff of the London ' Daily News.' The Christian world 
was bowed in profound sorrow when it was announced at midnight, January 31st, 
1892, that the Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon had died, at Mentone, France. For more 
than a generation he had been a great, fearless and faithful preacher in London, 
from which center his extraordinary gifts and labors more abundant had gone 
forth to bless the earth. His life and work were justly regarded as an unspeakable 
blessing to all mankind. Such fidelity and integrity to conviction, to truth and 
duty, such force of character and resoluteness of will have seldom been blended with 
childlike simplicity and humility, to say nothing of the broadest human sympathy 
and benevolence, in the career of any pastor. His robustness of style, his intense 
spirituality and his bold enterprise made him the brother of all true manhood, a 
burning and a shining light in the world. 

The entire number of Baptists in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and the 
Channel Islands is, of churches 2,803, of communicants 337,409, of pastors 1,858, 
and of Sunday-school scholars 418,921. 

CONTINENTAL EUROPE. 

Denmark. — The Baptists of Copenhagen occupy two chapels and have a 
large membership. In the kingdom of Denmark there are 22 churches, numbering 
2,861 communicants, with 21 pastors and 40 local preachers. Recently, a Christian 
gentleman who died at North Eskildstrup left a legacy of 1,000 crowns for a new 
chapel there. His son-in-law also gave 500 crowns, and the brethren will build in 



CONTINENTAL EUROPE. 571 

the coming spring. The work of God is spreading north of Jutland, and at 
Aalborg a beautiful site for a new chapel has been bought at a cost of 2,200 crowns. 
In Bornholm, an island not far from Sweden, 33 persons have lately been immersed 
on their faith in Christ, and a larger chapel is to be built for the congregation. The 
number of converts immersed in all the churches last year was about 200. 

Sweden. — In the year 1855 there were but 476 Baptists in Sweden ; but in 
the beginning of 1891 there were 57 Baptist Associations, 538 churches, 244 places 
of worship, 600 preachers, and 34,814 members. In 1891, 3,205 were immersed on 
their confession of Christ, and 21 new churches were formed. During that year all 
the churches contributed £20,000 for benevolent purposes. The ' Bethel Seminary,' 
in Stockholm, is in a most healthful condition, under the Principalship of Rev. K. O. 
Broady. Our Swedish brethren have suffered a severe loss in the death of Rev. 
Andreas Wiberg, November 7th, 1887, and Rev. Jonas Stadling, of Stockholm, is 
preparing his biography. The Swedish Baptists circulate about three millions and a 
half pages of tracts, Bibles, and other books annually, and have in their Sunday-schools 
33,825 children, who are instructed by 1,901 teachers. During the last 30 years 
about 6,000 of their members have removed to America. 

Norway and Finland.— In Norway there are 21 Baptist churches, having 
together a membership of 1,474, and in Finland there are 21 churches, with 1,243 
members. This shows an increase of 5 churches in Norway, and between three and 
four hundred members ; with an increase of 4 churches in Finland, and also an 
increase of nearly 1,000 members. 

Germany. — There are six Baptist Associations in Germany, which form one 
Baptist Union. The Associations convene annually, but the meeting of the Union 
is triennial. The Union met at Konigsberg, East Prussia, on the 19th of Jul} 7 , 1888. 
It was in the chapel of Konigsberg Castle that the late Emperor William placed the 
royal crown upon his own head, October 18th, 1862. The Union's Conference was 
very large, its delegates coming from far and near, the interest being greatly enhanced 
by the fact that the Baptist membership in this ancient Hanseatic city had increased 
from 18, in 1857, to 1,190 in 1893. Besides this, anew and attractive chapel, capable 
of seating 500 people, for the use of the second church, was to be dedicated in the 
southern part of the city, the old chapel standing in the northern part. In May, 1857, 
Moritz Geissler, a Saxon, who was supplying the infant church, was banished, as a for- 
eigner, and on the 29th of that month its meetings were entirely broken up. In the 
three years since the preceding meeting of the Conference 7,369 converts had been 
immersed, and the total membership represented, including Russia and other outlying 
countries, was reported at 34,477, with 21,919 children in the Sunday-schools. The 
number of Sunday-schools, 508, is not so large as it would be but for the persecution 
of the children. Dr. Bickel, of Hamburg, says : ' Scholars are held up to ridicule, 
threatened, and even beaten by parish schoolmasters for attending the schools of Bap- 
tists and Methodists.' The German churches proper number 124, having 25,836 
39 



572 CONTINENTAL EUROPE. 

communicants ; they have also 828 preaching places, and 18,452 scholars in their Sun- 
day-schools. Certain of the German churches have been greatly prospered. Those 
of two large cities may be specially noted here. 

Haanhurg. — The church in Hamburg has 510 members, and that at flamm, 
near by, 131. For many years the need of a Seminary was felt, where young men 
could be better qualified for their ministerial work, and in 1883 a small school was 
organized ; but it had no suitable building, and was not a success. This necessity has 
now been met, however. In 1887, when John D. Rockefeller, of New York, visited 
Germany, he gave $5,000 for the purchase of the ground, on the condition that the 
German churches Avould pay for the building. It is located at the extreme limit of 
Hamburg territory and is a very tasteful three-story building. Rev. Martin H. Wilkin, 
of London, who was present at its dedication, September 6th, 1888, says of it: 'The 
arrangements are all exceedingly good, substantial, elegant and neat. Nothing appears 
to have been wasted on superfluities, and nothing neglected that was necessary to 
comfort.' It is known as the ' Mission College,' and Joseph Lehmann, late pastor at 
Berlin, with J. Fetzer, are appointed its professors. Our German brethren are doing 
a great work through their publishing house. Their sale of books, periodicals and 
tracts between the years 1885 and 1888 reached the value of 111,557 marks, yielding 
a clear profit of 13,912 marks— £700. 

Berlin. — G. W. Lehmann was the founder of the Baptist church in the Prus- 
sian capital in 1837, and on October 9th, 1887, its Jubilee was celebrated by the ded- 
ication of the second chapel in that city. Mr. Lehmann was the pastor for over 
twenty years, the first fifteen of which were years of rare trial. Now, there are 1,835 
Baptist communicants in that city ; and, in striking contrast to the bitterness of fifty 
years ago, at the dedication of their second meeting-house several representatives 
of the city authorities were present, with many other notable guests. 

Hungary. — In Austrian Hungary there are 6 Baptist churches, having to- 
gether a membership of 1,822, with 5 pastors and 63 local preachers. The church at 
Buda -Pesth, the Hungarian capital, which was organized in 1871, numbers 1,310 mem- 
bers. On August 20th, 1888, their pastor, H. Meyer, dedicated an attractive new 
chapel, in the presence of a crowd of people who had gathered from the city itself, 
while a number of friends came from Austria, Bohemia and Poland to greet the 
brethren at Pesth. The opening of the chapel was followed by the Triennial Con- 
ference of the churches forming the Austro-Hungarian Baptist Association. They 
sent two brethren to the Hamburg Mission College to be educated for the ministry. 

Russia (Poland) and The Balkans. — It is difficult to give the exact 
facts in the several districts here mentioned, as the churches in Russia have but re- 
cently formed a separate Union, and its yearly account has not yet been made up. 
Under the above general heading, however, there are 50 churches, with about the . 
same number of pastors, and 12,544 communicants. The church at St. Peters- 
burg, which numbers 347 members, is a forceful body, but there are eleven other 



AMEBIC A. S73 

churches, each of which outnumbers this. That at Soroczin reports 579, that 
at Kicin 590, that at Zezulin 681, and. that at Libau 621, besides seven others which 
number from 348 to 570. A chapel was opened in 1888, at Mose Zuwka, (West 
Russia,) 12 persons were immersed on the occasion, and the brethren at St. Peters- 
burg are ambitious to build another. Mission work is now being pushed into 
Poland, Bohemia, Bavaria and Bulgaria. 

Holland. — The Dutch Baptist Union is growing in Holland. There are 20 
Baptist churches in the kingdom, 8 of which are members of the Union, and together 
they report 1,112 communicants. 

Switzerland. — There are but 4 Baptist churches here, with 2 pastors. 
The communicants number 421 ; the largest church reporting 135, at Zurich. 

Italy. — There are 50 churches in Italy, but only about 1,108 communicants. 

France. — Baptists have 24 churches here, which report their numbers to be 
1,359 ; the largest of these is in Paris, where 156 members are reported. 

AMERICA. 

The rapid increase of Baptists in America is almost incredible. In the United 
States alone, in 1886, there were 28,953 churches and 2,572,238 members, which 
had grown in 1892 to 35,890 churches and 3,269,806 members. There has been a 
large increase also in British America, where there ai'e 894 churches and 57,559 
members. In South America there are also a few churches, but it is hard to get at 
the exact figures at present. This result has been reached largely through the 
Northern and Southern Missionary Societies and the Baptist Publication Society. 
At this time the Southern Baptists are earnestly engaged in planting a mission in 
Cuba; the Baptists of British America are also doing a good work. 

The American Baptist Home Mission Society extends its work to 49 States and 
Territories, besides Canada, Alaska and Mexico. Its receipts for the year 1892 
were over $500,000, and it now employs 743 workers. The West demands its chief 
attention, and yet it employs 160 laborers, amongst Germans, Scandinavians and the 
French, and has also 17 mission stations in Mexico. It entered the first Protestant 
house of worship ever built in the city of Mexico, in 1887, and finished a fine build- 
ing for the use of the Chinese, in San Francisco, in 1888. Its work is hopeful 
amongst the Indians, and it has made good progress in Utah. It celebrated its twenty- 
fifth Anniversary of work for the colored people of the South, in Nashville, Tenn., on 
September 25th, 1888. Secretary Morehouse showed that about $2,000,000 had been 
given for the Freedmen. The Society has now 25 high-grade Institutions, with prop- 
erty valued at $1,000,000, with endowments amounting to $220,000, and an enroll- 
ment of more than 3,000 pupils. The only Theological School for the education of 
colored Baptists is at Richmond, Ya. In church edifice work the Society has greatly 
advanced since the establishment of the Gift Fund in 1881. It has helped to erect 
about 1,000 houses of worship. 



874 AMERICA. 

The American Baptist Missionary Union still continues to press its great work, 
and is now calling for 100 new men. Its funds are derived chiefly from the Baptists 
of the northern States, and its annual income has increased to $589,772 93. In the 
year 1892, it celebrated the centennial year of Baptist missions, and is now making 
an effort to raise the sum of $1,000,000 for its missionary work. Few Societies 
have been blessed with such illustrious Corresponding Secretaries as the Union has 
had. Bev. Drs. Solomon Peck, to 1856; Edward Bright, 1846-55; Jonah G. 
Warren, 1855-72 ; John N. Murdoch, 1863 to the present time, having been 
in office for 26 years ; Geo. W. Gardner, 1873-76 ; A. G. Lawson, 1884-85 ; and 
William Ashmore, who for more than 30 years was a missionary in China, but was 
•elected a Secretary in 1887. At the Anniversary of 1892, Bev. Dr. Murdock was 
retired, and took the position of Honorary Secretary ; Samuel W. Duncan, D.D., 
Henry C. Mabie, D.D., and Bev. E. F. Merriam, were elected Corresponding Secre- 
■ taries. The work of the Union has been so divinely led that in the number of its 
^missionary churches it stands first amongst the Missionary Societies of the world. 
At present (1892) it has under its care 2,030 preachers, 1,459 churches, 163,881 
communicants, and has during the last year received 18,549 converts to Christ, by 
baptism. 

The American Baptist Publication Society is doing an immense work under the 
.guidance of its Secretaries, Bevs. Drs. Griffith and Bitting. In 1892 it completed 
the revision of the New Testament, by Drs. Weston, Broadus and Hovey, and its 
total receipts for Bible work that year were $21,412 34, and its circulation of the 
Scriptures reached Cuba, Mexico, Canada and South America, as well as the United 
States. Its total receipts for the Missionary Department were $118,415 25; the 
number of tracts which it distributed were 609,716, and the number of converts 
baptized by its missionaries were 695 persons. The total sales of the Publishing 
Department for the year amounted to $533,656 59, and all the receipts of the three 
•departments — Bible, Publication, and Missionary — were $673,484 18. Besides its 
great Sunday-school periodicals, the number of its 16mo pages printed in 1891-92 
wrere 795,919,788. 

In no department of denominational life have the last five years witnessed 
greater prosperity than in its educational pursuits. Not only has there been a large 
advance in its 157 Theological Institutions, Universities, Colleges, Seminaries and 
Academies, but the new movements in Scholastic life have been remarkable. The 
' Education Society ' was organized in 1888, for the purpose of promoting higher 
education amongst the schools which had at that time cost the Denomination nearly 
twenty millions of dollars, but largely through this Society that sum has been in- 
creased to about twenty-nine millions, so that now there are in these various seats of 
learning nearly twenty-six thousand students. The foundations of the University 
of Chicago were laid as early as 1856, but one disaster had followed another in its 
.history, so crushingly, that it was deemed best to entirely dissolve its existence and 



AMERICA. S7S 

begin afresh. Its reconstruction and enlargement have been so thorough, that 
recently, under the old name, a really new University has sprung up, whose develop- 
ment has been so rapid and comprehensive as to excite astonishment in the most 
hopeful minds. The grounds of the University contain about twenty-four acres, and 
the sum of $1,000,000 has been raised for buildings, dormitories, laboratories, 
a museum, a gymnasium and other structures, for the work of the Institution. The 
assets of the corporation, including subscriptions and funds in hand, amount to 
$5,000,000 ; $2,600,000 of these funds have been presented through the munificent 
benevolence of John D. Rockefeller, Esq., and the work of the University is to be 
done on the broadest and fullest scale of culture which can be commanded, under 
proper safeguards. The Institution began its Calendar and Curriculum on October 
1st, 1892, with a full corps of officers, administrators and instructors, and with be- 
tween six and seven hundred students, and with the prospect of large additions in 
the near future. Much larger beneficence will be needed for its final success, in 
answer to the earnest hopes of its large-minded friends, but it is believed that all 
necessary benefactions will be supplied. 

Death has removed several of our most noted educators witbin a short time. 
Rev. Ebenezer Dodge, D.D., LL.D., died at Hamilton, IS". T., January 5th, 1890. 
For thirty-six years he had been a most faithful laborer in Madison University, as 
Professor and President. He was elected to the professorship of Biblical Criticism 
and Interpretation in the Hamilton Theological Seminary, in 1853, and President 
of Madison University in 1868. Few students ever attain to deej:>er thought, and 
few scholars preserve greater vigor throughout a lifetime in the realm of human 
investigation. His imprint upon what has now become Colgate University will 
remain for generations. 

A month later, February 26th, 1890, Dr. Martin B. Anderson, the President of 
Rochester University, died at Lake Helen, Florida. He was the first President of 
this Institution, and had filled that high position since the year 1853. All his 
mental and spiritual characteristics stamped him as a great teacher and a King-man, 
who enriched thousands of otber lives. The history of Rochester University is 
incorporated in his own. He sacrificed his health, his life and his possessions in its 
welfare, and it will ever hold his memory in holy reverence. 

Rev. Thomas J. Conant, D.D., the great educator and Biblical translator, died 
in Brooklyn, 1ST. Y., April 30th, 1891, at the advanced age of eighty -nine years. This 
distinguished scholar and critic, being dead, yet speaks in eloquent tones to all students 
of the Sacred "Writings, for his example must be ineffaceable on every such honest 
investigator. There was nothing vague nor loose in the entire range of his scholar- 
ship. All was distinct and exact, his custom of tracing every discovery back to its 
orignal source indicating the habit of the independent student in the strictest sense- 
He possessed the real scholar's insatiable thirst for truth, however severe its lines, and 
he was stimulated by the highest incentives to explore every process of inquiry till 



576 CLOSING FIGURES. 

lie found and exhausted the treasure of which he was in search. The greatness and 
sacredness of his work made him indefatigable to reach and lay open the mind of 
the Holy Spirit in the inspired text, and hence he brought the highest devotion and 
all the ethics of fidelity into his work, with but little regard to other results. He 
believed that each passage in the Divine autographs had been traced by the finger 
of God, and this faith made him eager to solve the meaning of each word. In 
addition to this, he possessed the thorough linguistic faculty, and had made himself 
the complete master of the Scripture languages and their cognates, especially in their 
delicate tones of expression. His knowledge of the customs, people and places of 
Biblical history was very wide, and he was guided by an almost instinctive aptitude 
to communicate his translations in the most fitting words. His own insight into the 
inspired thought made his words embody a picture, a real vision, in the truest and 
simplest style. Accuracy and enthusiasm were combined in his translations, because 
he was saturated with the life of the inspired writers, touched by the hardest and 
subtilest research. In these respects he was like that great seer, John "Wycliff — 
marked by the same distinct and intense style. His lofty purpose of faithfulness to 
the God of the Bible brought all his powers under the influence of truth. In a word, 
his varied greatness numbered him amongst the first scholars of this century, for 
accuracy, soundness and life, as a translator of the Holy Oracles, both for the common 
people and the cultured. 

CLOSING FIGURES. 

In Australia the additions to the Baptist ranks have not been large for a few 
years ; they have now, however, nearly 200 churches, with 16,580 members in that 
land. The most accurate figures which can be commanded show that at present 
there are 44,558 Baptist churches in the world, with 4,013,689 communicants on 
record. Outside of Great Britain and Ireland there are 84,694 Baptists in Europe ; 
in Asia, 96,639 ; in Africa, 3,357; in South America, 413 ; in the West Indies and 
Central American Islands, 43,453 ; in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince 
Edward's Island there are 139,000 members. As the registered brotherhood exceeds 
4,000,000, the fair presumption is that 10,000,000 of people are now under the direct 
influence of the people who for centuries ' ; wandered in deserts and mountains 
and caves of the earth," " destitute, afflicted, and ill-treated." " This is the Lord's 
doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes ! " 



APPENDIX. 



THE EARLIEST BAPTIST CONFESSION KNOWN. 

Letter of the brotherly union of certain believing baptized children of God, who have assembled at 
Schleitheim, to the congregations of believing, baptized Christians : 

JOY, peace, and mercy from our Father, through the union of the blood of Christ Jesus, to- 
gether with the gifts of the Spirit (who is sent by the Father to all believers for strength and 
comfort and constancy in all distress unto the end, Amen) be with all who love God, and with the 
children of the light everywhere scattered abroad, wherever they are appointed by God our Father, 
wherever they are assembled with one accord in one God and Father of us all. Grace and peace 
in heart be with you all. Amen. 

Beloved in the Lord, brothers and sisters, we are first and specially concerned for the comfort 
and assurance of your minds, which have perhaps been disturbed ; that ye should not always, like 
foreigners, be separated from us and almost cut off, justly, but that ye may again turn to the true 
implanted members of Christ who are armed by long-suffering and knowledge of himself, and so 
be united again with us in the power of one divine spirit of Christ and zeal toward God. 

It is also plain that with a thousand wiles the devil has turned us away, in order that he may 
disturb and destroy the work of God, which has been mercifully and graciously begun in us. But 
the true Shepherd of our souls, Christ, who has begun this in us, will direct and guide the same 
to the end, to his honor and our salvation. Amen. 

Beloved brethren and sisters, we, who are assembled together in the Lord at Schlaitten Am 
Randen, make known to all who love God that we have agreed in certain points and articles, which 
we should hold in the Lord, as the obedient children of God, and sons and daughters who are and 
should be separated from the world in all things we do or forbear. And, to God be everlasting 
praise and glory, we were perfectly at peace, without opposition from any brother. By this we 
have perceived that the harmony of the Father and our common Christ, with their Spirit, was with 
us ; for the Lord is the Lord of j>eace and not of contention, as Paul shows. 

But that ye may understand what these articles were, mark and understand. Scandal has 
been brought in among us by certain false brethren, so that some have turned from the faith, 
because they have presumed to use for themselves the freedom of the Spirit and of Christ. But 
such have erred from the truth and are given over (to their condemnation) to the wantonness and 
freedom of the flesh; and have thought faith and love may do and suffer all things, and nothing 
would injure or condemn them as long as they thus believed. Mark, ye members of God in Christ 
Jesus, faith in the Heavenly Father through Jesus Christ does not thus prove itself, does not work 
and deal in such way as these false brethren and sisters do and teach. Take heed to yourselves ; 
be warned of such ; for they serve not our Father, but their father, the devil. But ye are not so, 
for they who are of Christ have crucified the flesh, with all lusts and longings. You understand 
me* well, and the brethren whom we mean. Separate yourselves from them, for they are turned 
away. Pray the Lord for their acknowledgment unto repentance and for our constancy to walk in 
the way we have entered, for the honor of God and his Christ. Amen. 

* These articles are said to have been drafted originally by Michael Sattler, an ex-monk, highly educated and amiable, 
who suffered martyrdom, May 21st, 1527, at Rothenburg, on the Neckar. This change to the first person is an interesting 
confirmation of this view of their origin. 



S78 APPENDIX. 

The articles we have discussed, and in which we are one, are these: 1. Baptism. 2. Excom- 
munication. 3. Breaking of bread. 4. Separation from abominations. 5. Shepherds in the con- 
gregation. 6. Sword. 7. Oath. 

1. In the first place, mark this concerning baptism: Baptism should be given to all those who 
have learned repentance and change of life, and believe in truth that their sins have been taken 
away through Christ; and to all those who desire to walk in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and 
to be buried with him in death, that with him they may rise; and to all those who with such 
intention themselves desire and request it of us. By this is excluded all infant baptism, the 
Pope's highest and first abomination. This has its foundation and witness in the Scriptures and 
in the usage of the Apostles — Matt. 28, Mark 16, Acts 2, 8, 16, 19. This we would with all sim- 
plicity, but firmly, hold and be assured of. 

2. In the second place, we were united concerning excommunication, as follows: Excommu- 
nication should be pronounced on all those who have given themselves to the Lord, to walk in his 
commandments, and on all those who have been baptized into one body of Christ, and who call 
themselves brothers and sisters, and yet slip away and fall into sin and are overtaken unawares. 
They should be warned the second time privately, and the third time publicly rebuked before the 
whole congregation, or be excluded according to the command of Christ, Matt. 28. But this 
should take place, according to the order of the Spirit of God, before the breaking of bread, that 
we may with one mind and with one love break and eat of one bread and drink of one cup. 

3. Thirdly, we were one and agreed concerning breaking of bread, as follows: All who would 
break one bread for a memorial of the broken body of Christ, and all who would drink one 
draught as a memorial of the poured out blood of Christ, should beforehand be united to one 
body of Christ; that is, to the Church of God, of which the head is Christ, to wit, by baptism. 
For, as Paul shows, we cannot at the same time be partakers of the table of the Lord and of the 
table of the devil ; we cannot at the same time partake and drink of the cup of the Lord and of 
the cup of the devil ; that is, all who have communion with the dead works of darkness, they 
have no part with the light. All who follow the devil and the world have no part with 
those who are called from the world to God. All who lie in the wicked one have no part with 
the good. Hence, also, it should and must be, whoso has not the call of one God to one faith, 
to one baptism, to one spirit, to one body, common to all the children of God, he cannot be made 
one bread with them, as must be if we would in the truth break bread according to the command 
of Christ. 

4. Fourthly, we were agreed concerning separation : This should be from the evil and wicked, 
whom the devil has planted in the world, to the end alone that we should not have association 
with them or run with them in the multitude of their abominations. And this because all who 
have not entered the. obedience of faith, and who have not united themselves to God to do his 
will, are a great abomination before God, and naught can possibly grow or issue from them but 
abominable things. Now, in all creatures there is either goodness or evil; they either believe or 
are unbelieving; are darkness or light; of the world or Cut of the world; temples of God or of 
idols; Christ or Belial, and none may have part with the other. Now, the command of God is 
plain to us, in which he calls us to be ever separate from evil. Thus will he ever be our God, and we 
shall be his sons and daughters. Further, he warns us to go out from Babylon and carnal Egypt, 
that we be not partakers of their torment and sufferings, which the Lord will bring upon them. 

From all this we should learn that everything that is not at one with our God and Christ 
is nothing else than abomination, which we should avoid and flee. By this is meant all Popish 
and anti-Popish work and worship, assembly, church-going, wine-houses, citizenship, and enjoy- 
ments of unbelief, and many other similar things which the world prizes, though they are done 
directly against the command of God, according to the measure of all unrighteousness, which is 
the world. From all this we should be separate and have no part with such, for they are clear 
abominations, which will make us abhorrent to our Christ Jesus, who has delivered us from the 
service of the flesh and filled us for the service of God by the Spirit whom he has given to us. 
Therefore, there will also from us undoubtedly depart unchristian and devilish weapons — sword, 
armor, and the like — and all use of them for friend or against enemies, through power of the word 
of Christ, 'Resist not evil.' 

5. Fifthly, we are united respecting the pastor in the congregation of God, thus: The pastor 



APPENDIX. 579 

in the congregation should be one in entire accordance with the direction of Paul, who haa a good 
report from those who are without the faith. His office should be to read, exhort, and teach; to 
warn, reprove, excommunicate in the congregation, and to lead in prayer for the bettering of all 
brethren and sisters ; to take the bread, to break it, and in all things to care for the body of Christ, 
that it be edified and bettered, and that the mouth of the blasphemer be stopped. But he, when 
he is in want, must be supported by the congregation which elected him, so that he who serves 
the Gospel should also live from it, as the Lord has ordained. 

But if a pastor should do anything worthy of reproof, nothing should be undertaken with 
him without two or three witnesses; and if they have sinned, they shall be reproved before all the 
people, that the others may fear. 

But if the pastor is driven away, or is taken by the cross to the Lord, immediately another 
shall be chosen in his place, that the little flock of God be not destroyed. 

6. Sixthly, we were united concerning the sword, thus: The sword is an ordinance of God 
outside of the perfection of Christ, which punishes and slays the wicked and protects and guards 
the good. In law the sword is ordained over the wicked for punishment and death, and the 
civil power is ordained to use it. But in the perfection of Christ, excommunication is pronounced 
only for warning and for exclusion of him who has sinned, without death of the flesh, only by 
warning and the command not to sin again. It is asked by many who do not know the will of 
Christ respecting us, whether a Christian may or should use the sword against the wicked in order 
to protect and guard the good, or for love ? 

The answer is unanimously revealed thus : Christ teaches and commands us that we should 
learn from him, for he is meek and lowly of heart, and so we will find rest for our souls. Now, 
Christ says to the heathen woman who was taken in adultery, not that they should stone her 
according to the law of his Father (yet he also said, ' as the Father gave me commandment, even 
so I do '), but in mercy, and forgiveness, and warning to sin no more, and says, ' Go and sin no 
more.' So should we also closely follow according to the law of excommunication. 

Secondly, It is asked concerning the sword, whether a Christian should pronounce judgment 
in worldly disputes and quarrels which unbelievers have with one another ? The only answer is : 
Christ was not willing to decide or judge between brothers concerning inheritance, but refused to 
do it; so should we also do. 

Thirdly, It is asked concerning the sword, Should one be a magistrate if he is elected thereto ? 
To this the answer is: It was intended to make Christ a King, and he fled and did not regard the 
ordinance of his Father. Thus should we do and follow him, and we shall not walk in dark- 
ness. For he himself says, ' Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his 
cross and follow me.' Also, he himself forbids the power of the sword and says, ' The princes of 
the Gentiles exercise lordship,' etc., 'but it shall not be so among you.' Further, Paul says, 'for 
whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son. ' Also, 
Peter says, ' Christ has suffered (not ruled), leaving us an ensample that ye should follow his steps.' 

Lastly, it is remarked that it does not become a Christian to be a magistrate for these reasons : 
The rule of the magistrate is according to the flesh, that of the Christian according to the Spirit; 
their houses and dwelling remain in this world, the Christian's is in heaven; their citizenship is 
in this world, the Christian's citizenship is in heaven; the weapons of their contest and war are 
carnal and only against the flesh, but the weapons of the Christian are spiritual, against the for- 
tresses of the devil; the worldly are armed with steel and iron, but the Christians are armed with 
the armor of God, with truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and with the word of God. 
In short, as Christ our head was minded towards us, so should the members of the body of 
Christ through him be minded, that there be no schism in the body by which it be destroyed. 
For every kingdom divided against itself will be brought to destruction. Therefore, as Christ is, 
as it stands written of him, so must the members be, that his body be whole and one, to the edifi- 
cation of itself. 

7. Seventhly, we were united concerning oaths, thus: The oath is an assurance among those 
who dispute or promise, and was spoken of in the law that it should take place with the name of 
God, only in truth and not in falsehood. Christ, who teaches the perfection of the law, forbids to 
his people all swearing, whether true or false, neither by heaven nor by earth, nor by Jerusalem, 
nor by our head, and that for the reason which he immediately after gives, ' Because thou canst not 



S80 APPENDIX. 

make one hair white or black.' Take heed, all swearing is therefore forbidden, because we are 
not able to make good that which is promised in the oath, since we cannot change the least thing 
upon us. Now, there are some who do not believe the simple command of God. but they speak 
and ask thus : If God swore to Abraham by himself because he was God (when he promised him 
that hs would do good to him and would be his God if he kept his commands), why should I 
not also swear if I promise a person something ? Answer. Hear what the Scripture says: 'God 
Deing willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, 
confirmed it with an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to 
iie, we might have a strong consolation.' Mark the meaning of this Scripture : God has power to 
do what he forbids to you, for to him all things are possible. 

' God swore an oath to Abraham,' says the Scripture, ' in order that he might show his coun- 
sel to be immutable ; ' that is, no one can withstand or hinder his will, and therefore he can keep 
ihe oath. But, as was said by Christ above, ' We have no power either to hold or to give, ' and 
therefore should not swear at all. 

Further, some say God has not forbidden in the New Testament to swear, and he has com- 
manded it in the Old ; but it is only forbidden to swear by heaven, earth, Jerusalem, and by our 
head. Answer. Hear the Scriptures : ' He that shall swear by heaven sweareth by the throne of 
God ; and by him that sitteth thereon.' Mark, swearing by heaven is forbidden, which is only the 
throne of God; how much more is it forbidden to swear by God himself! Ye fools and blind, 
which is the greater, the throne, or he who sits upon it ? 

Still, some say, If it is wrong to use God's name for the truth, yet the apostles, Peter and 
Paul, swore. Answer. Peter and Paul testify only that which God promised to Abraham by oath, 
and they themselves promised nothing, as the examples clearly show. But to testify and to 
swear are different things. When one swears he promises a thing in the future, as Christ was 
promised to Abraham, whom we received a long time afterwards. When one testifies he witnesses 
concerning that which is present, whether it be good or bad, as Simon spoke of Christ to Mary 
and testified, ' Behold, this one is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign 
which shall be spoken against.' Similarly Christ has taught us when he says, ' Let your commu- 
nication be yea, yea, nay, nay; for whatsover is more than these cometh of the Evil One.' He 
says, your speech or word shall be yea and nay, and his intention is clear. 

Christ is simple yea and nay, and all who seek him simply will understand His word. Amen. 

Dear brethren and sisters in the Lord, these are the articles which some brethren have under- 
stood wrongly and not in accordance with the true meaning, and thereby have confused many 
weak consciences, so that the name of God has been grossly blasphemed ; for which cause it was 
necessary that we should be united in the Lord, which, God be praised, has taken place. 

Now that ye have well understood the will of God, which has been manifested through us, 
it is necessary that ye from the heart and not wavering perform the known will of God. For ye 
welfknow what is the reward of that servant who sins wittingly. 

All that ye have done unwittingly and that ye have confessed that ye have done wrong, that 
is forgiven you through believing prayer, which was made by us in the assembly for the sin and 
guilt of us all, through the gracious pardon of God and through the blood of Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Mark all those who walk not according to the simplicity of divine truth, which is contained 
in this letter, as it was apprehended by us in the assembly, in order that each one among us be 
governed by the rule of discipline, and henceforth the entrance among us of false brethren and 
sisters be guarded against. Separate from you what is evil, so will the Lord be your God, and 
ye shall be his sons and daughters. 

Dear brethren, be mindful how Paul extorts Titus. He speaks thus: 'The grace of God 
that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and 
worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world, looking for 
that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, whc 
gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar peo- 
ple, zealous of good works.' Think of this and practice it; so will the Lord of peace be with you. 

The name of God be eternally praised and glorified. Amen. 

The Lord give you his peace. Amen. 

Acta Schlaitten am Randen aup Matthiae, February 2Uh, Anno MDXXVIL 



APPENDIX. 



S81 



Religious Statistics for the United States. 

COLLATED BY THE ELEVENTH CENSUS. 

THE Census Bureau of the United States undertook to collect and prepare in 
1890-92 religious statistics of all denominations in the States and Territories. 
The work was placed under the supervision of Henry K. Carroll, L.L.D., and from 
the voluminous bulletins issued by the Bureau we condense the following figures. 

Bulletin Xo. 174 contained the returns of the Presbyterian Church in the 
United States of America, the Presbyterian Church in the United States, the "Welsh 
Calvinistic Methodist or Presbyterian Church, and the Cumberland Presbyterian 
Church (colored), the latter being organized in 1810 by ministers and members of 
the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (white). The following summary shows the 
statistics for the Presbyterian family of Churches : 

SUMMARY OF PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES. 



CHURCHES' 



Presbyterian in the U. S- of America 

Presbyterian in the United States 

Welsh Calvinistic Methodist 

Cumberland (colored) 

Presented in previous bulletins : 

Cumberland Presbyterian 

United Presbyterian 

Associate Church of North America 

Associate Reformed, South 

Reformed Presbyterian (Synod) 

Reformed Presbyterian (General Synod) 

Reformed Presbyterian (Covenanted).. 

Reformed in the United States & Canada 



Organiza- 
tions. 



6,717 

2,391 

187 



2,791 

866 

31 

116 

115 

33 

4 

1 



Total ! 13,490 



Church 
edifices. 



6,663 

L'.-'-s 
189 
193 

2,008 
831 
23 
116 
115 
33 
1 
1 



12,462 



Seating 
capacity. 



2,225,044 

0'.k>,S43 
44,445 
53,914 

662,807 

264,298 

4,849 

37,050 

37,095 

12,380 

200 

800 



556 
143 
14 
37 

551 
50 
8 
5 
3 
1 
3 



4,033," 



1,371 



Seating 
capacity. 



57,805 
19,895 
1,266 
3,645 

91,288 
5,530 
345 
540 
COO 
100 



Communi- 
property. L«££« 



Value of church 



$74,455,200 

8,812,152 

625,875 

202,961 

3,515,511 

5,408,084 

■J'.I.-.'UH 

211,850 

1,071.400 

469,000 

75.666 



>-.-J'Jl 

179,721 

12,722 

13,439 

164,940 

94,402 

1,053 

8,501 

10,574 

4,602 

37 

600 



181,014 $94,876,233 1,278,815 



According to these returns there are 13,490 organizations or congregations of 
Presbyterians of all branches in the United States, 12,462 church edifices, valued at 
$94,876,233, and 1,278,815 communicants. 



582 



APPENDIX. 



BAPTIST CHURCHES IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Next we present a summary of the Baptist denomination, including its Sunday- 
schools, contributions, etc. : 

SUMMARY OF BAPTIST STATISTICS. 



STATES AND 
TERRITORIES. 



Alabama.... 
Arizona Terrify 

Arkansas 

California .. . 

Colorado 

Connecticut. 
Delaware . . . 
Dis. of Columbia 

Florida 

Georgia 

Idaho Territory. 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Indian Terrify. 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts.. 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

Montana 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire 
New Jersey. 
New Mexico Ter 

New York 

North Carolina. 
North Dakota. . 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania... 
Rhode Island... 
South Carolina. 
South Dakota.. 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Utah Territory. 

Vermont 

Virginia 

Washington.. .. 
West Virginia.. 

Wisconsin 

Wyoming Ter. 



1,361 

8 

1,073 

190 

36 

140 

9 

36 

289 

2,154 

9 

737 

361 

106 

325 

404 

1,118 

771 

143 

56 

361 

320 

154 

1,468 

1,228 

12 

173 



76 

211 

7 

821 

1,236 

22 

475 

72 

490 

75 

850 

60 

1,065 

1,994 



93 

1,105 

50 

266 

163 

2 



2,343 

6 

1,536 

151 

50 

129 

13 

31 

59' 

3,250 

12 

899 

538 

150 

410 

630 

1,921 

1,137 

245 



360 

207 

2,52S 

1,864 

13 

218 

1 

82 

209 

9 

874 

2,411 

41 

630 

84 

620 

70 

1,492 

83 

1,545 

3,202 

o 

109 
1,818 
75 
488 
203 
3 



Total 1353 21,175 33,588 3,070,047 17,696 $58,162,36' 



S . 



181,099 

150 

84,116 

9,462 

3,915 

22,104 

1,783 

11,75- 

32,564 

308,428 

314 

86,966 

46,885 

5,938 

28,986 

33,374 

215,596 

93,985 

19,465 

13,822 

58,301 

31,981 

13,584 

187,724 

125,127 

581 

9,620 

46 

8,627 

38,189 

134 

124,483 

232,207 

1,350 

53,384 

4,404 

79,415 

12,079 

199,862 

3,766 

125,681 

201,283 

180 

8,770 

291,075 

2,6* 

36,018 

13,920 

161 



35 



1,051 $666,180 



131 

37 
140 

17 

30 

145 

1,708 

9 

732 

431 

45 
349 
363 
812 
723 
19' 

75 
312 
331 
173 
795 
774 

14 

155 

1 

78 

265 

4 

841 

1,454 

34 
555 

58 
584 

76 
991 

67 
607 
614 



231 

172 



231,73' 
611,650 
239,700 

1,644,500 
164,300 
545,375 
152,070 

1,907,681 
12,000 

2,707,821 

1,065,866 

15.000 

808,680 

936,391 

1,969,262 
355,251 
707,425 
645,700 

5,056,370 

1,585,810 

1.043,500 
765,315 

1,995,313 

56,400 

435,036 

5,000 

457,000 

2,746,521 



11,258,904 

7'90,241 

33,000 

2,384,825 

208,570 

5,391,106 

1,088,500 

1,105,604 

116,575 

1,246,975 

1,471,798 



621,620 
1,755,220 
120,600 
327,840 
676,575 
22,500 



REPORTED CONTRIBUTIONS. 



Salaries and 
expenses. 



41.423 51 
115,531 24 

19,379 40 
169,519 19 

22,779 

37,379 49 

21,070 48 
119,192 55 
1,900 00 
373,484 81 
123,818 56 
3,394 72 
161,452 36 
136,466 21 
174,144 

21.169 23 
125,868 20 

70,079 74 
856,428 32 
198,160 12 
127,685 43 
102,653 94 
227,386 92 
7,676 42 

89,273 20 
800 00 

77,336 
290,082 90 
941 36 
978,993 06 
165,790 46 
9,811 87 
294,515 60 

28,271 64 
655,213 04 
118,652 78 
132,7S8 71 

24.170 11 
125,749 26 
119,627 50 



70,141 00 
220,225 56 
17,956 81 
36,9.33 02 
102,251 32 
2,400 00 



$0.1100,260 27 



$22,220 65 



7,088 54 

7,392 07 

4,085 85 

19,161 18 

1,489 30 

3,570 .82 

3,201 34 

45,671 82 

150 00 

51,261 16 

22,673 02 

451 72 

17,697 41 

9,518 55 

21,022 31 

8,081 61 

13,959 35 

18,236 92 

97,927 39 

78,741 13 

29,949 86 

24,184 73 

61,814 89 

173 20 

7,439 14 



8,335 28 

37,555 82 

235 20 

158,082 80 

22,060 29 

668 85 

38,818 08 

5,514 64 
66,624 68 
17,079 24 
24,242 30 

1,689 61 

15,362 21 

29,413 35 

250 00 

8,148 71 
43,006 97 

2,827 65 

4,439 38 
19,852 54 



$1,092,571 56 



(,466 59 



489 95 
5,671 95 



1,007 02 

103 93 

2 00 

1,129 55 

6,289 



5,929 48 
1,847 04 

"3,016' 56 
3,500 02 

66,213 14 
407 55 
715 36 
1,309 21 
3,046 00 
4,322 89 
2,102 59 
4,516 65 

17,368 23 



64 8' 



6,691 47 



21,170 29 

4,257 90 

17 75 

8,629 27 

818 80 

12,828 06 

843 31 

7,519 35 

2,264 94 

4,607 52 

2,752 5' 



331 00 

4,440 75 

10,186 90 

959 44 

2,629 20 



$228,469 90 



Miscella- 
neous. 



5,613 45 



13,914 12 
16,814 04 
29,779 49 
17,767 12 
1,565 68 
23,164 25 
1,559 89 
20,774 81 

150 00 
104,075 8! 
31,045 0' 

477 91 
56,626 15 
31,47'9 54 
182,378 88 
10,286 87 
10,882 34 
58,781 10 
82,476 60 
68,709 07 
54,610 73 
35,017 82 
78,901 61 

130 
29,551 42 



4,460 08 

172,994 02 

10 " 

356,784 14 

46,394 ~ 

6,578 34 
62,798 94 

3,372 60 
145,842 95 
11,064 83 
21,419 8' 

2,513 47 
18,245 58 
31,289 46 

2,000 00 

2,947 23 
63,694 80 

7,113 10 

3.075 13 
2S,817 2 



$1,977,951 88 



Aggregate. 



$136,237 38 



62,916 12 
145,409 30 

53,844 74 
207,454 51 

25,938 59 

64,116 56 

26,961 26 
191,929 08 
2,200 00 
535,110 34 
179,384 59 
4,324 34 
238,792 48 
180,964 32 
453,758 42 

40,545 26 

151,425 25 

148,406 97 

1,039,878 31 

349,933 21 

214,348 61 

166,373 14 

385,471 65 

7,980 34 

126,328 63 

800 00 

90,132 13 

507,324 21 

1,187 36 

1,515,030 29 

238,503 36 

17,076 81 
404,761 89 

37,977 68 
880,508 73 
147,640 16 
185,970 23 

30,638 13 

163,964 57 

183,082 88 

2,250 00 

81,567 94 
331,368 08 

38,084 46 

45,406 97 

153,550 33 

2,400 00 



$10,199,259 61 



APPENDIX. 



583 



The Fifth Bulletin deals with the returns for the entire Lutheran communion 
3n the United States. The following table gives a summary view of the general 
bodies, the independent synods, and the independent congregations : 



SUMMARY OF LUTHERAN BODIES. 



SYNODS, BODIES, ETC. 



General Synod 

United Synod in the South 

General Council 

Synodical Conference 

Independent Lutheran bodies : 

Joint Synod of Ohio, etc 

Buffalo Synod 

Hauge's Synod 

Norwegian Church in America 

Michigan Synod 

Danish Church in America 

German Augsburg Synod 

Danish Church Association 

Icelandic Synod 

Immanuel Synod : 

Suomai Synod - 

United Norwegian Church of America 

Independent congregations 

Total 



Organiza- 
tions. 



1,424 

414 

1,995 

1,934 

421 
27 

175 

489 
65 

131 
23 
50 
13 
21 
11 
1,122 

112 



8,427 



Church 
edifices. 



Seating 
capacity. 



1,322 

379 

1,512 

1,531 

443 
25 
99 

275 
53 
74 
23 
33 
4 
19 



87 



6,559 



471,819 
138,453 
577,190 
443,185 

149,338 

5,793 

30,500 

78,988 

14,613 

14,760 

7,560 

5,700 

1,300 

5,300 

1,915 

185,242 

27,a34 



2,159,290 



Halls, etc. 



72 

29 

367 



10 
2 

75 
182 

12 

42 
1 

15 
9 



393 
14 



1,290 



Seating 
capacity. 



10,730 
4,225 

30,904 
4,362 

785 
275 

4,436 

12,115 

550 

2,175 



750 



29,185 
1,685 



102,657 



Value of church 
property. 



$8,919,170 
1,115,065 

10,996,786 
7,804,313 

1,639,087 

84,410 

214,395 

806,825 

164,770 

129,700 

111,060 

44,775 

7,200 

94,200 

12,898 

1,544,455 

530,125 



$34,218,234 



Communi- 
cants or 
members. 



164,640 

37,457 

317,145 

357,153 

69,505 

4,242 

14,730 

55,452 

11,482 

10,181 

7,010 

3,493 

1.991 

5,580 

1,385 

119,972 

18,096 



1,199,514 



RELIGION AMONG THE NEGROES. 

Of the 2,600,000 Negroes in the South who are church members, more than 
1,230,000 are Baptists. 

We have in the United States, according to the census, about 7,470,000 Ne- 
groes. Of this colored population, 6,889,000 are to be found in the old slave terri- 
tory — sixteen States, including West Virginia, with the District of Columbia and Okla- 
homa. Since the war the Churches have been active in behalf of the Negroes ; and 
that their efforts have been successful is shown by numbers of Negroes belonging to 
the various denominations, which Dr. Carroll gives as follows : Colored Baptists, 
1,230,000; Colored Methodists, 1,186,000; Colored Catholics, 121,000; Colored 
Presbyterians, 31,500 ; Colored Disciples, 31,000 ; Colored Congregationalists, 6,125; 
Colored Episcopalians, 4,900 — all these making a total of 2,610,525 Christians. The 
effects of the work of the Churches on the Negroes is very marked, and may be 
summed up as follows : it has taught them that religion is inseparable from morality, 
a distinction which in the past they often failed clearly to perceive ; that voudouism 
and all other superstitions are a degradation to themselves and a disgrace to re- 
ligion ; and it has inspired them with a desire to profit by the advantages of civiliza- 
tion. 



S84 



APPENDIX. 



THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 



GENERAL SUMMARY OF STATISTICS. 



Alabama 

Albany 

Arkansas 

California 

Central New York 

Central Pennsylvania 

Chicago 

Colorado 

Connecticut 

Delaware 

East Carolina 

Easton 

Florida 

Fond du Lac 

Georgia 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Long Island 

Louisiana 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts 

Michigan 

Milwaukee 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

Nebraska 

Newark 

New Hampshire 

New Jersey 

New York 

North Carolina 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania 

Pittsburg 

Quincy 

Rhode Island 

South Carolina 

Southern Ohio 

Springfield 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Vermont 

Virginia 

Western Michigan 

Western New York 

West Missouri 

West Virginia 

Alaska 

Montana 

New Mexico and Arizona 

Nevada and Utah ' 

North Dakota 

Northern California 

Northern Texas '... 

South Dakota 

The Platte 

Washington 

Western Texas 

Wyoming and Idaho 

Total in United States of America 

Western Africa 

China 

Japan 

Greece 

European Churches 

Mexico 

Hayti 

Grand total 



Clergy. 



35 

132 
21 
100 
110 
115 
87 
41 
200 
35 
28 
35 
55 
32 
39 
46 
58 
39 
46 
120 
37 
27 
181 
202 

77 

C2 
95 
32 
44 
40 

102 
35 

107 

363 
61 
70 
21 

230 
63 
26 
56 
46 
56 
42 
50 
29 
32 

158 
27 

113 
36 
23 



Lay 
readers. 



17 
5 
11 
14 
18 
18 
29 
8 
28 
19 
27 



4,111 
14 
32 
16 

'"io 

6 
11 



4,203 



42 



59 
117 



33 



20 



1,124 
11 
27 
34 



15 
17 



Parishes 

and 
missions. 



1,228 



63 

179 

31 

96 

145 

161 

87 

100 

177 

36 

46 

37 

125 

58 

58 

54 

106 

144 

53 

124 

102 

39 

137 

191 

140 

109 

166 

77 

57 

57 

83 

34 

124 

210 

118 

98 

40 

155 

110 

40 

53 



62 
66 
51 
57 

149 
53 

112 
63 
55 



Baptisms. 
1891. 



27 
20 
21 
50 
35 
37 
89 
58 
45 
62 
36 



5,322 
110 
49 
67 

6 

29 
22 



5,605 



434 

1,978 

204 

1,200 

1,541 

1,539 

1,828 

529 

2,093 

542 

397 

425 

752 

486 

463 

569 

627 



2,593 
597 
350 

2,619 

3,057 

1,437 
663 

1,134 
267 
669 
628 

2,008 
304 

1,414 

6,079 
513 

1,244 
354 

4,307 

1,249 
185 

1,140 
459 
619 
291 
550 
397 
398 

1,370 
511 

1,702 
305 
220 

' ' '212 
73 
224 
151 
245 
135 
945 
166 
374 
205 



Confirmed, 
1891. 



59,574 
226 
518 
323 



121 



60,821 



536 

1,401 

168 

1,053 

1,050 

1,120 

951 

345 

1,559 

274 

276 

210 

406 

510 

310 

406 

382 

433 

579 

1,858 

441 

178 

1,560 

1,535 

1,072 

437 

901 

275 

514 

. 309 

1,152 

228 

878 

4,201 

436 

950 

206 

2,655 

1,001 

176 

617 

336 

460 

304 

429 

236 

S08 

1,322 

348 

1,345 

305 

171 

""m 

32 
96 

86 
110 
152 
303 
154 
210 
111 

85 



Communi 
cants. 



40,569 

99 

251 

303 



20 



6,295 

18,438 

2,173 

9,146 

15,774 

10,370 

13,497 

3,795 

26,640 

2,842 

3,274 

3,027 

4,085 

3,489 

5,551 

5,880 

6,266 

3,908 

6,964 

23,072 

4,898 

3,168 

27,392 

28,021 

12,865 

6,623 

10,422 

3,066 

5,281 

3,100 

16,209 

2,894 

13,104 

53,854 

4,566 

9,330 

1,977 

37,100 

9,928 

2,393 

9,780 

5,554 

7,528 

3,496 

5,208 

3,258 

4,461 

18,635 

4,232 

15,697 

3,676 

2,983 



1,490 

617 

1,324 

752 

1,185 

1,984 

2,609 

872 

2,215 

1,829 

1,463 



531,535 

844 

762 

1,277 



41,242 



780 
375 



535,573 



Increase 
for year. 



518 

1,931 
99 
622 
460 
758 
983 
408 

1,734 
206 
238 
45 
234 
333 
279 
204 
22 
802 
436 

1,125 
261 
155 
524 
903 
111 
344 

1,375 
37 



792 

96 
555 
2,199 
152 
989 
667 
979 
712 

30 
427 
710 

53 
155 
318 

84 

175 

1,703 

210 

528 

'"54 

"161 

45 

155 

39 

132 

179 

64 

67 

469 

213 

50 



26,637 
144 
223 
283 



30 
27 



27,281 



APPENDIX. 



S85 



CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES IN THE UNITED STATES. 



SUMMARY BY STATES AND TERRITORIES. 



STATES, ETC. 



Alabama 

Arizona 

Arkansas 

California 

Colorado 

Connecticut 

District of Columbia. 

Florida 

Georgia 

Idaho 

Illinois : 

Indiana 

Indian Territory 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

Montana 

Nebraska 

Nevada.... 

New Hampshire 

New Jersey 

New Mexico 

New York 

North Carolina 

North Dakota 

Ohio. 



Oklahoma 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania. . 
Rhode Island . 
South Carolina 
South Dakota . . . 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Utah 

Vermont 

Virginia 

Washington 

West Virginia.. 

Wisconsin 

Wyoming 



Organiza- 
tions. 



Total 



28 
3 

182 

49 

303 

6 

39 

73 

5 

302 

55 

6 

285 

183 

8 

20 

240 

3 

559 

331 

175 

7 

80 

7 

172 

1 

188 

33 

4 

301 

20 

05 

247 

10 

35 

108 

34 

3 

138 

26 

15 

14 

198 

2 

104 

2 

182 



Church 
edifices. 



3 

5 

149 

38 

383 

6 

29 

58 

3 

296 

42 



243 
152 

6 

11 
272 

3 
671 
299 
152 

5 
69 

5 
144 

1 
226 
36 

4 

324 

16 

38 

252 



27 

100 

39 

3 

80 

20 

12 

2 

216 

2 

62 

2 

196 



4,736 



Seating 
capacity. 



5,505 

550 

1,600 

37,773 

11,010 

147,6&8 

3,370 

7,600 

15,500 

420 

103,036 

12,200 

' ' 68 081 

34,975 

1,750 

3,825 

85,591 

1,150 

298,910 

82,458 

37,403 

1,150 

29,550 

1,130 

32,019 

200 

73,346 

14,050 

625 

128,179 

3,705 

5,955 

83,029 

7,500 

34,605 

19,080 

1,100 

14,967 

4,570 

3,250 

600 

65,112 

550 

13,698 

750 

52,615 

1,350 



1,553,0 



5 

12 

2 

19 

11 



50 

"i 

8 
5 



15 
47 
25 

2 
10 

2 



456 



Seating 
capacity. 



850 

"60 
!,390 

820 



1,275 
150 

2,470 
800 



4,140 



200 

1,030 

500 



3,195 

4,065 

2,425 

525 

950 

210 



220 
700 



550 
125 

1,480 
485 

'l,3i.5 

1,250 
650 



3,940 
1,120 

250 
1,400 

200 



2,606 



Value of church 
property, 



42,640 



9,500 

26,000 

1,014,975 

377,090 

5,366,201 

339,000 

73,775 

75,350 

6,400 

2,975,812 

221,650 

' i',23i;ss6 

485,975 

20,200 

23,800 

1,512,030 

71,500 

11,030,890 

1,533,055 

1,114,800 

6,975 

650,344 

38,800 

640,204 

1,000 

1,405,050 

655,300 

17,800 

5,175,262 

14,200 

81,800 

2,044,525 

160,200 

672,588 

905,800 

31,350 

200,665 

106,000 

55,30(1 

76,000 

1,318,100 

7,500 

316,230 

18,500 

1,089,750 

44,550 



Communi- 
cants or 
members. 



$43,335,437 



1,083 

162 

669 

11,907 

3,217 

59,154 

1,399 

1,184 

3,880 

105 

a5,830 

3,081 

127 

23,733 

11,945 

449 

1,057 

21,523 

336 

101,890 

24,582 

13,624 

210 

7,617 

345 

10,045 

50 

19,712 

4,912 

175 

45,0si; 

1,002 

1,616 

32,281 

170 

2,037 

9,818 

7,192 

376 

5,164 

1,429 

846 

460 

20,465 

156 

3,154 

136 

15,841 



512,771 



The eighth bulletin of statistics of religions bodies contains the returns for nine 
numerically smaller denominations. 

The largest of the nine bodies is that known as the Disciples of Christ, other- 
wise called Christians, and sometimes popularly designated as " Campbellites," a 
term which is offensive to them. This denomination has 641,050 communicants, 
with church property valued at $12,206,038. Of its 7,246 organizations, 5,324 own 
church edifices, with a total seating capacity of 1,609,452. Numerically, the Dis- 
ciples of Christ are strongest in Missouri, where they have 97,773 members; Indiana 
comes second, with 78,942 ; Kentucky third, with 77,647 ; and Illinois fourth, with 
60,867. 

The Christians, or Christian Connection, a kindred body, organized early in the 
present century, has 90,718 communicants, and church property valued at $1,637,202. 



586 APPENDIX. 

The Evangelical Association, a Methodistic body of German origin, lias upward 
of 133,313 members. 

The Seventh-Day Adventists, a branch of the general movement led by William 
Miller in the fifth decade of the present century, have 28,991 members, and the 
Church of God, a division of the Seventh-Day Adventists body, has 647 members. 

Among the minor bodies are the Primitive Methodist Church, with 4,764 
communicants-; the Union American Methodist Episcopal Church, a colored or- 
ganization, with 2,279 members ; the United Zion's Children, a branch of the 
body known as River Brethren, with 525 members ; and the Society for Ethical 
Culture, founded by Professor Felix Adler in New York in 1876, which has 1,064 
members. 

The ninth bulletin gives the returns for the Methodist Episcopal Church, which 
is commonly known as the parent body of American Methodism. The Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South, which became a distinct branch in 1845, was due to a sep- 
aration provided for by the General Conference which met in New York in 1844. 
A difference in the administration of the Discipline on the subject of slavery was 
the cause of separation. The somewhat indefinite line of division between the North 
and the South agreed upon in the plan of separation was not adhered to by both 
sides. During the Civil War the Northern Church followed the Northern armies 
into the South, and after the restoration of peace gradually established churches all 
over the South. The Southern Church has not extended itself far to the northward, 
except on the Pacific coast, where it has Conferences including, besides California, 
the States of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. It also has congregations 
in Indiana and Illinois. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, is strongest in Texas, where it has 
139,347 members ; Georgia is second, with 134,600; Tennessee third, with 121,398; 
North Carolina fourth, with 114,385 ; Alabama fifth, with 87,912. The Methodist 
Episcopal Church is represented in all the States and Territories, including Alaska 
and the District of Columbia. In the following States it has congregations in every 
county : 



No. of 
counties. 

Connecticut. 8 

Delaware 3 

Illinois 102 

Indiana 92 

Iowa 99 

Kansas 106 

Maine 16 

Maryland 24 

Massachusetts 1-1 



No. of 
counties. 

Montana 16 

New Hampshire 10 

New Jersey 21 

New Tork 60 

Ohio 88 

Pennsylvania 67 

Ehode Island 5 

Vermont 14 



Of the 2,790 counties in the various States and Territories, it has organizations 
in all save 585, mostly in the Southern States. 



APPENDIX. 



687 



I.-THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 



SUMMARY BY CONFERENCES AND MISSIONS. 



CONFERENCES. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

Austin 

Baltimore 

Blue Ridge 

California 

California German Mission 

Central Alabama 

Central German 

Central Illinois 

Central Missouri 

Central New York 

Central Ohio 

Central Pennsylvania 

Central Tennessee 

Chicago German 

Cincinnati 

Colorado 

Columbia River 

Dakota 

Delaware 

Des Moines 

Detroit 

East German 

East Maine 

East Ohio 

East Tennessee 

Erie 

Florida 

Genesee 

Georgia 

Holston 

Idaho 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Indian Mission 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Lexington 

Little Rock 

Louisiana 

Maine 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

Montana 

Nebraska 

Newark 

New England 

New England Southern 

New Hampshire 

New Jersey 

New York 

New York East 

North Carolina 

North Dakota 

Northern German 

Northern New York 

North Indiana 

North Nebraska 

North Ohio 

Northwest German 

Northwest Indiana 

Northwest Iowa 

Northwest Kansas 

Northwest Swedish 

Norwegian and Danish 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Philadelphia 

Pittsburg 

Puget Sound 

Rock River 

Saint John's River 

Saint Louis 

Saint Louis German 

Savannah 

South Carolina 

Southeast Indiana 

40 



Organiza- 


Church 


tions. 


edifices. 


171 


151 


134 


95 


33 


25 


411 


403 


172 


130 


195 


183 


16 


16 


153 


143 


177 


176 


412 


384 


158 


136 


313 


307 


408 


396 


581 


530 


136 


119 


122 


115 


371 


369 


85 


73 


132 


84 


201 


119 


236 


228 


392 


355 


495 


402 


61 


62 


190 


141 


539 


534 


i i 


70 


514 


410 


67 


69 . 


372 


356 


88 


87 


3C8 


274 


31 


26 


597 


538 


424 


408 


68 


28 


335 


311 


242 


201 


333 


249 


151 


137 


92 


72 


216 


189 


171 


153 


540 


445 


378 


300 


195 


192 


328 


282 


51 


42 


195 


196 


299 


276 


246 


238 


207 


202 


139 


135 


303 


300 


466 


424 


325 


327 


115 


108 


117 


59 


111 


85 


312 


302 


463 


452 


117 


112 


323 


318 


94 


56 


343 


338 


180 


166 


329 


111 


144 


116 


93 


63 


588 


570 


131 


96 


371 


374 


353 


345 


97 


78 


337 


324 


43 


30 


359 


259 


161 


154 


232 


215 


335 


337 


304 


303 



Seating 
capacity. 



32,845 
26,200 
6,605 
137,966 
42,930 
55,450 
3,610 
41,135 
38,370 
103,147 
35,305 
95,375 

118,235 

152,200 
28,725 
21,890 

113,660 
22,614 
19,845 
27,794 
50,534 
96,010 

118,750 
17,085 
42,105 

160,510 
12,300 

114,014 
14,790 
'.M,ll9.-> 
15,000 
83,275 
5,000 

156,813 

122,425 
7,025 
85,665 
54,810 
56,015 
33,785 
12,043 
39,060 
46,326 

122,327 
70,570 
48,023 
74,860 
9,260 
59,493 
89,045 

102,891 
67,288 
44,765 

101,870 

131,608 

117,343 
21,557 
10,650 
12,800 
85.205 

131,315 
25,205 
98,979 
9,160 
89,720 
41,440 
25,495 
27,675 
14,320 

167,985 
24,915 

156,921 

101,639 
19,875 

114,529 
6,330 
77,225 
31,760 
58,415 
81,810 
91,575 



38 
84 

4 
39 

1 



2 
20 

1 
32 

5 
54 
14 
40 
20 
41 
66 
12 
18 
25 
10 
60 
76 



22 
23 



38 

5 

6 

59 

25 

9 



36 

3 

6 

216 

31 

30 

19 

34 

6 



4 
84 

5 
17 



Seating 
capacity. 



1,465 
6,535 
350 
770 
8,225 
1,955 



Value of church 
property, 



610 



2,770 

1,700 

630 

700 

4,410 

2,000 

595 

400 

3,905 

3,595 

5,645 

650 

3,820 

6,710 

725 

4,274 

200 

570 

""'ioo 

1,830 

25 

5,375 

505 
3,990 

700 
6,275 
1,990 
4,946 
9,210 
1,000 

950 
1,545 
1,085 
5,100 
5,985 

2,505 

925 

1,500 

1,650 

1,775 

775 

156 

1,025 

2,450 

505 

520 

4,830 

1,290 

825 

1,020 

1,425 

645 

2,300 

250 

450 

15,5a5 

2,400 

2,900 

2,500 

3,295 

800 

1,000 

1,800 

6,625 

400 

12,700 

600 

1,850 



S128,800 

1 14,220 

219,900 

3,221,060 

77,850 

1,263,321 

121.400 

130,360 

771,000 

1,148,700 

177,580 

1,662,650 

1,260,250 

2,319,495 

97,435 

369,400 

2,057,200 

903,900 

254,250 

325,200 

315,970 

965,900 

1,920,600 

589,900 

471,150 

2,385,700 

105,900 

1,487,314 

86,365 

2,080,150 

53,350. 

368,925 

66,000 

1,657,775 

858,650 

31,150 

725,400 

654,150 

476,715 

286,125 

48,140 

296,102 

697,225 

1,701,000 

1,340,643 

124,319 

453,875 

165,350 

567,250 

3,067,575 

3,989,175 

1,653,200 

748,850 

2,181,900 

4,731,900 

5,609,380 

117,795 

136,185 

257,9.50 

1,309,650 

1,291,500 

395,650 

1,177,880 

130,850 

977,030 

469,800 

218,790 

397,100 

173,600 

1,453,340 

488,625 

5,014,220 

2,619,150 

368.125 

2,946,400 

121,125 

945,185 

491,490 

202,590 

292,235 

884,450 



Communi- 
cants or 
members. 



7,455 

6,295 

1,485 
41,195 

7,492 
14,429 
829 
11,317 
14,391 
29,754 

8,559 
35,591 
38,893 
50,773 

5,584 

7.873 
46,188 

8,325 

5,792 

9,774 
16,877 
36,927 
40,189 

5,239 
10,444 
59,666 

4,235 
36,796 

4,425 
34,946 

3,547 
24,419 

1,173 
52,934 
41,424 

2,062 
25,059 
21,534 
20,653 
10,437 

3,781 
14,911 
12,689 
43,898 
23,768 
14,869 
19,799 

1,991 
19,220 
42,198 
40,884 
24,371 
14,335 
44,488 
53,644 
55,724 

8,941 

4,509 

4,643 
27,540 
47,144 

9,481 
30,435 

4,371 
33,167 
16,292 
13,902 

9,236 

4,782 
5M,I)S'.I 

7,051 
61,645 
45,485 

6,615 
38,674 

1,034 
24,543 
11,100 
21,853 
43,200 
35,038 



688 



APPENDIX. 



SUMMARY BY CONFERENCES AND MISSIONS.— Continued. 



CONFERENCES. 



Southern California 

Southern Illinois 

Southern German 

South Kansas 

Southwest Kansas 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Troy 

Upper Iowa 

Upper Mississippi 

Vermont 

Virginia. . 

Washington 

West German — 

West Nebraska. . 

West Texas 

West Virginia 

West Wisconsin 

Wilmington 

Wisconsin 

Wyoming 

Missions : 

Arizona ., 

Black Hills 

Nevada 

New Mexico English 

New Mexico Spanish 

North Pacific German 

Northwest Norwegian and Danish 

Utah 

Wyoming 

Total 



Organiza- 
tions. 



114 
405 

43 
306 
289 
115 
238 
355 
317 
202 
177 
202 
324 
126 
274 

95 
740 
336 
376 
234 
413 

12 
23 
25 
10 
25 
18 
17 
34 
13 



25,861 



Church 
edifices. 



94 
388 

36 
206 
160 
112 
197 
338 
289 
195 
148 
158 
311 

96 
104 

89 
533 
267 
372 
233 
360 

11 
17 
26 
8 
15 
17 
13 
32 
11 



22,844 



Seating 
capacity. 



31,700 
112,110 
6,800 
51,210 
37,050 
26,020 
40,340 
104,006 
77,320 
32,955 
42,510 
24,725 
66,930 
16,669 
19,425 
20,245 
130,500 
55,879 
89.731 
58,014 
93,820 

3,550 
3,550 
5,300 
1,900 
3,225 
2,850 
2,675 
6,730 
2,190 



6,302,708 



Halls, etc. 



26 

13 

3 

97 

129 

2 

34 

16 

22 

7 

16 

44 

13 

33 

158 

3 

202 



Seating 
capacity. 



5,450 

955 

65 

7,913 

11,760 

135 

2,510 

1,185 

1,410 

200 

1,110 

5,000 

660 

1,660 

10,500 

800 

20,065 

5,345 

550 

3^915 

75 
275 
100 
150 
200 



50 
310 



2,873 



275,444 



Value of church 
property. 



$633,650 
637,310 
72,700 
429,375 
490,700 
129,850 
'202,005 

2,417,525 
970,455 
120,505 
496,600 
116,100 
870,522 
265,650 
175,100 
97,730 
702,375 
655,550 

1,510,837 
866,200 

1,657,150 

46,100 
47,060 

116,800 
42,000 
38,700 
52,750 
■87,500 

228,150 
48,700 



$96,723,408 



Communi- 
cants or 
members. 



9,836 

30,322 

2,470 

22,800 

21,899 

10,065 

14,531 

43,578 

27,493 

16,265 

12,621 

8,718 

32,976 

5,554 

9,743 

8,932 

42,795 

16,345 

35,598 

17,702 

38,731 

320 
831 
878 
540 

1,475 
635 
548 

1,066 
773 



2,240,354 



II -THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH. 



SUMMARY BY CONFERENCES. 



CONFERENCES. 


Organiza- 
tions. 


Church 
edifices. 


Seating 
capacity. 


Halls, etc. 


Seating 
capacity. 


Value of church 
property. 


Communi- 
cants or 
members. 




509 
333 
561 
44 
28 
56 
219 
322 
22 
624 
163 
290 
332 
456 
46 
250 
488 
491 
22 
463 
468 
24 
27 
657 
602 
737 
508 
458 
610 
139 
339 
686 
546 
431 
608 
190 
710 
91 
646 
400 
177 
244 


502 
202 
482 

29 

17 

24 
210 
280 

21 
542 
115 
141 
278 
390 

31 
242 
419 
484 

14 
418 
401 

14 

19 
612 
556 
734 
492 
285 
274 

71 
225 
678 
535 
301 
558 
166 
702 

46 
606 
241 

112 ; 

216 


109,920 

55,985 

120,550 

5,260 

3,561 

5,585 

47,925 

53,348 

4,600 

165,370 

28,050 

26,005 

80,565 

92,845 

6,900 

37,155 

119,100 

135,728 

2,125 

100,207 

107,520 

3,120 

2,950 

141,255 

169,715 

198,176 

120,703 

83,800 

86,730 

17,310 

72,965 

196,808 

122,980 

86,103 

166,460 

43,860 

177,055 

11,575 

199,635 

68,285 

27,438 

54,239 


3 

67 
62 
13 

7 
26 

8 
23 

38 
26 
135 
29 
57 
12 
10 
46 

5 

5 
37 
35 
10 

8 
16 
24 

3 

5 

165 

299 

28 

98 

5 
10 
89 
44 
22 

4 
30 

3 
68 
56 

3 


275 
7,155 
5,355 
530 
650 
3,590 
1,600 
1,700 

4,375 

2,700 

12,065 

4,865 

8,035 

300 

750 

5,065 

825 

140 

4,945 

2,875 

835 

750 

2,150 

3,575 

150 

200 

27,285 

39,350 

2,055 

9,000 

700 

1,450 

8,600 

7,530 

2,650 

400 

3,525 

450 

6,527 

5,500 

300 


$567,360 
199,596 
977,965 

32,650 
101,100 

48,850 
214,825 
309,024 

42,350 
904,890 
133,783 

75,750 
692,900 
326;217 
157,735 
445,845 
691,967 
704,620 

24,075 
413,690 
740,264 

76,000 

38,200 
580,513 
712,976 
1,041,680 
527,948 
417,928 
439,386 
298,275 
615,975 
796,840 
617,230 
699,350 
881,832 
335,777 
1,474,580 

94,250 
689,960 
279,000 
169,125 
183,082 


39,574 




23,134 




41,070 




1,280 




1,395 




1,301 




22,050 




20,420 




1,325 




43,014 




7,854 




10,498 




27,114 




28,016 




2,072 




20,379 




40,427 
49,436 




1,041 




38,173 




36,965 




517 




535 




53,210 




52,643 




82,921 




41,177 




42,013 
45,208 




5,722 




20,684 




68,092 




51,395 




29,547 




59,999 




15,237 




69,826 




3,552 




57,594 




20,722 




12,429 




20,415 




15,017 


12,687 


3,359.466 


1,134 


190,777 


$18,775,362 


1,209,976 



APPENDIX. 



589 



III.-GERMAN, SPANISH, AND SCANDINAVIAN METHODISTS. 



CONFERENCES. 



German : 

Central German 

Chicago German 

East German 

Northern German 

Northwest German 

Saint Louis German 

Southern German 

West German 

California German Mission 

North Pacific German Mission 

Total 

Spanish : 

New Mexico Spanish Mission 

Scandinavian : 

Northwest Swedish 

Norwegian and Danish 

Northwest Norwegian and Danish Mission.. . 
Churches and missions in other Conferences 

Total 



Organiza- 
tions. 



177 
122 

61 
111 

94 
161 

42 
126 

16 

18 



928 



25 



144 
93 
17 
54 



308 



Church 
edifices. 



176 
115 
62 
85 
56 
154 
36 
96 
16 
1" 



815 



15 



116 
63 
13 

47 



239 



Seating 
capacity. 



38,370 
21,890 
17,085 
12,800 

9,160 
31,760 

6,800 
16,669 

3,610 

2,850 



160,994 



3,225 



27,675 

14,320 

2,675 

9,850 



54,520 



Value of church 



$771,000 
369,400 
589,900 
257,950 
130,850 
491,490 

72,700 
265,650 
121,400 

52,750 



$3,123,090 



$38,700 



$397,100 
173,600 
87,500 
277,300 



$935,500 



14,391 
7,873 
5,239 
4,613 
4,371 

11,100 

2,470 

5,554 

829 

635 



57,105 



1,475- 



4,782 

548 

3,254 



17,820' 



There are also in various Conferences a few congregations of Bohemians, Finns,. 
Portuguese, French, Italians, Welsh, Chinese, and Japanese. 

The following table gives a summary view of these several denominations : 

SUMMARY BY CHURCHES. 



CHURCHES. 



Disciples of Christ 

Christians, or Christian Connection 

Evangelical Association 

Primitive Methodist 

Union American Methodist Episcopal 

Seventh-Dav Adventists 

Church of God (Seventh-Day Adventist). . 

United Zion's Children 

Society for Ethical Culture 



Organiza- 


Church 


tions. 


edifices. 


7,246 


5,324 


1,281 


962 


2,310 


1,899 


84 


78 


42 


35 


995 


418 


29 


1 


25 


25 


4 





Seating 
capacity. 



,609,452 

301,692 

479,335 

20,930 

11,500 

94,627 

200 

3,100 



Halls, etc 



1,141 

218 

425 

11 

555 
23 



Seating 
capacity. , 



129,325 

24,725 
24,885 

1,670 

250 

27,865 

1,445 

6,860 



Communi- 
cants or 
propertj . mem bers. 



Value of church 



$12,306,038 
1,637,802 
4,785,680 

291,993 

187,600 

644,675 

1,400 

8,300 



641,051 

90,718 

133,313 

4,764 

2,279 

88,991 

647 

525 

1,064 



The statistics which follow are for the Cumberland Presbytei*ian Church, the 
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), the Reformed Episcopal 
Church, the Unitas Fratrum or Moravian Church, the German Evangelical Synod of 
North America, the German Evangelical Protestant Church of North America, and 
the Plymouth Brethren. The last-named body has no ordained ministers, owns no 
houses of worship, and appears now for the first time in a statistical table. The 
following is a summary of the denominations : 



DENOMINATIONS. 



Organiza- 


Church 


tions. 


edifices. 


2,791 


2,008 


425 


265 


83 


84 


94 


114 


870 


785 


52 


52 


109 





Seating 
capacity. 



Halls, etc. 



Seating 
capacity. 



Value of church 
property. 



Communi- 
cants or 
members- 



Cumberland Presbyterian Church.. 
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 

Reformed Episcopal Church 

Moravian Church 

German Evangelical Synod of N. America 
German Evangelical Protestant Church of 

North America 

Plymouth Brethren 



662,807 
92,102 
23,925 
31,615 

245,781 

35,175 



551 

178 

2 

4 

83 

1 
108 



91,288 

28,075 

300 

715 

5,970 



7,423 



$3,515,511 

825,506 

1,615,101 

681,850 

4,614,490 

1,187,450 



164,940 
144,353 
8,455 
11,781 
187,4=32 

36,156 
2,279 



1390 



APPENDIX. 



The statistics of the Roman Catholic Church by ecclesiastical provinces are 
next given. The name of the metropolitan see is printed in small capitals, and the 
name of each diocese in lower-case letters. Embracing immigrants from nearly all 
the countries of Europe, the Roman Catholic is a polyglot Church. Confessions are 
heard, among other languages, in German, Polish, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Bohemian, 
French, Spanish, and Italian. In the diocese of Scranton there are seven Polish, 
seven German, four Hungarian, one Lithuanian, one Polish and Lithuanian, and 
Italian, besides English congregations. 

STATISTICS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH BY PROVINCES. 



PROVINCES. 



--Baltimore 

Charleston 

Richmond 

Savannah 

• Saint Augustine.. 

Wheeling 

"Wilmington 

North Carolina... 



Total . 



Oregon 

Helena 

Idaho 

Nesqually 

Vancouver's Island 
{ Alaska) 



Total . 



Organi- 
zations. 



180 
66 
58 
64 
32 

43 
60 



580 

95 

94 
52 



Saint Louis... 
Cheyenne. . . . 
Concordia — 
Davenport — 

Dubuque 

Kansas City.. 
Leavenworth . 

Lincoln 

Omaha 

Saint Joseph. 
Wichita 



Total. 



.New Orleans 

Brownsville 

•Galveston 

Indian Territory. 

Xittle Rock 

Mobile 

Natchez 

Natchitoches 

San Antonio 



Total . 



Cincinnati 

Cleveland 

Columbus 

Covington 

Detroit 

Fort Wayne. .. 
Grand Rapids. 

Louisville 

Nashville 

Vincennes 



Total. 

New York. 
Albany... 
Brooklyn. 
Buffalo... 



333 

29: 
61 

80 
122 
303 

79 
208 

96 
11 

66 



1,514 

148 
35 

106 
30 
47 
82 
61 
5' 

116 

689 

172 
297 
117 

98 
185 
148 
161 
125 

59 
163 



1,525 

275 
153 
109 
156 



176 
23 
46 
44 
27 
59 
33 
24 



432 

48 
40 
22 
58 



173 

267 
9 

46 
120 
319 

77 
176 

76 
103 

58 

49 



1,300 

148 
35 
81 
14 
46 
48 
61 
35 
68 



$3,418,790 
384,500 
477,500 
485,123 
180,300 
309,455 
259,950 
90,262 



$5,605,880 

$290,090 
184,100 
70,050 
156,050 

9,700 



536 

164 
250 
101 

62 
182 
135 
115 
119 

35 
168 



1,331 

234 
124 
113 
150 



$709,990 

$2,778,545 
173,450 
108,011 
979,166 
2,864,235 
828,025 
392,800 
264,200 
914,960 
463,800 
124,750 



$9,891,941 

$1,535,900 

76,200 

601,000 

10,150 

219,100 

647,550 

322,525 

31,300 

326,500 



Communi- 
cants. 



192,597 
5,360 
13,261 
11,228 
13,988 
14,698 
14,251 
2,640 



$3,770,225 

$3,269,970 
2,805,200 
1,320,470 

380,200 
2,260,000 
1,376,000 

890,250 
1,420,850 

433,700 
2,158,691 



$16,315,331 

$8,992,525 
3,164,700 
5,751,907 
3,403,900 



268,023 

30,231 

25,149 

4,809 

20,848 

559 



81,596 

123,230 

7,185 

11,500 

45,072 

116,612 
23,626 
48,906 
22,131 
29,372 
16,008 
7,156 



450,798 

181,964 
26,218 
36,013 
2,510 
3,845 
16,109 
11,427 
29,720 
36,31 



344,123 

132,320 
155,351 
48,543 
25,793 
102,551 
45,229 
72,830 
66,801 
17,860 
73,871 



741,049 

472,806 
130,660 
228,785 
134,518 



New York— Cont'd. 

Newark 

Ogdensburg 

Rochester 

Syracuse 

Trenton 



San Francisco . 

Monterey 

Sacramento . . . 
Utah 



PROVINCES. 



Total. 



Total. 



Santa Fe... 
Arizona... 
Denver... 

Total. 



Philadelphia. 

Erie 

Harrisburg. .. 

Pittsburg 

Scranton 



Total. 



Milwaukee . 
Green Bay. 
LaCrosse... 
Marquette.. 

Total... 



BOSTON 

Burlington.. 
Hartford . . . 
Manchester. 
Portland . . . 
Providence. 
Springfield . 



Total. 



Chicago.. 

Alton 

Bellville. 
Peoria . . 



Total. 



Saint Paul... 

Duluth 

Jamestown.. 
Sioux Falls.. 
Saint Cloud. 
Winona... . 



Total. 



Organi- 
zations. 



116 
86 
91 
89 

103 

1,178 

124 
73 
56 

44 



297 

290 
85 
110 



485 

153 
120 
61 
198 
122 



654 

264 
18' 
195 
CO 



706 
204 



148 



142 



815 

278 
141 
95 
174 



231 

63 
113 
179 

73 



75' 



108 
83 
91 

82 
83 

1,068 

123 
68 
56 
20 



26', 



427 

15' 
103 
55 
185 
110 



610 

262 
181 
1 
63 



683 



7' 

133 
52 
70 
87 

123 



271 



93 

164 



666 

20] 

41 
60 
100 
70 
92 



564 



$4,297,482 

836,246 

1,907,300 

1,712,900 

1,753,200 



$31,820,160 

$2,021,260 
233,690 
421,000 
108,500 



$2,784,450 

$272,055 
164,300 
843,637 



$1,279,992 

$3,388,000 

873,300 

877,860 

3,307,025 

1,622,585 



$10,068,770 

$3,074,230 
991,010 
794,710 
521,100 



$5,381,050 

$6,379,078 

866,400 

3,093,750 

205,600 

597,550 

3,374,500 

2,358,125 



$16,875,003 

$6,457,064 

1,216,480 

916,400 

1,356,875 



$9,946,819 

$2,474,435 
119,375 
171,550 
246,030 
402,765 
517,750 



$3,931,905 



Communi- 
cants. 



162,802 
60,579 
65,670 
60,112 
59,472 



1,375,404 

112,180 
32,881 
13,805 



166,759 

89,261 
36,905 
47,111 



173,277 

251,162 
51,017 
26,262 

134,976 
88,160 

551,577 

119,271 
70,665 
59,228 
46,880 



296,044 

419,660 
42,810 

152,945 
39,920 
57,548 

156,850 

134,872 



1,004,605 

326,640 
57,285 
25,900 



473,324 

203,484 
13,589 
26,227 
25,920 
19,998 
34,248 



323,466 



APPENDIX. 



S91 



For convenience of reference we also append a summary of the Roman Catholic 
Church by States and Territories : 



STATES AND TERRITORIES. 


Organiza- 
tions. 


Church 
edifices. 


Seating 
capacity. 


Halls, etc. 


Seating 
capacity. 


Value of church 
property. 


Communi- 
cants or 
members. 




70 

6 

52 

47 

249 

110 

148 

19 

17 

44 

64 

52 

688 

311 

17 

425 

367 

222 

206 

88 

186 

381 

406 

465 

67 

442 

94 

213 

20 

68 

219 

317 

959 

60 

115 

586 

13 

95 

654 

51 

66 

177 

60 

163 

28 

79 

69 

86 

67 

646 

67 


42 

5 

22 

46 

243 
94 
133 

16 

17 

33 

44 

22 

666 

303 

8 

439 

271 

180 

184 

70 

175 

324 

360 

404 

60 

402 

40 

179 

12 

52 

191 

306 

877 

24 

60 

515 

6 

48 

610 

52 

23 

100 

36 

189 

12 

77 

44 

58 

62 

620 

9 


10,520 

500 

6,490 

8,580 

83,740 

23,378 

79,444 

8,780 

12,800 

8,140 

10,746 

4,265 

235,784 

106,202 

1,680 

134,702 

55,730 

62,806 

57,885 

29,941 

65,489 

242,267 

131,641 

149,085 

13,448 

138,943 

8,668 

38,396 

3,500 

23,825 

99,290 

93,770 

480,974 

4,935 

13,615 

197.813 

1,300 

11,462 

305,014 

40,625 

7,425 

19,218 

11,105 

55,925 

2,210 

31,101 

14,811 

11,345 

16,229 

189,831 

1,260 


28 

1 

24 

26 
17 
2 

5 
20 
32 

27 
16 

9 
13 
86 
40 
20 
19 

8 

58 
49 
41 

7 
35 
62 
41 

8 
15 
27 
38 
90 
25 
55 
76 

7 
47 
50 

3 
69 
24 
69 
16 

2 
25 
28 

5 
46 
58 


40 
830 

950 
4,595 

650 

980 
370 
80 
90 

1,195 
2,785 

2',420 

475 

15,177 

1,300 

3,177 

50 

375 

1,510 
923 
385 
950 

1,690 
400 

5,835 
225 

1,540 

2,708 
110 

3,145 

2,250 
250 
650 
970 
265 
510 
650 

8,254 
400 


$602,750 
9,700 

124,500 

219,100 
2,627,950 

843,637 
3,093,750 

201,500 
1,015,800 

225,100 

485.123 

70,050 

9,946,819 

3,534,691 

5.850 

3,843,400 

625,561 
1,800,550 
1,568,200 

597,550 
2,449,440 
9,816,003 
3,671,350 
3,514,325 

321,525 
4,070,370 

184,100 

1,179,160 

88,500 

205,600 
6,050,682 

296,755 

25,769,478 

90,262 

171,550 

7,395,610 

4,300 

290,090 
10,068,770 
2,295,700 

384.500 

246,030 

434,200 

1,018,800 

68,000 

-<;t'..4i"K> 

458,800 

150,100 

340,155 
4,859,950 

173,450 


13.230 




559 




19,000 




3,845 




156,846 




47.111 




152,945 




11,776 




37,593 




16,867 




11,228 




4,809 




473,324 




119,100 




1,240 




161,684 
67,562 




92,504 




211,763 




57,548 




157.429 




614,627 




222,261 




271,319 




11,348 




162,864 




25,149 




51,503 




3,955 




39,920 




222,274 




100,576 




1,153,130 




2,640 




26,427 


Ohio .. 


336,114 




1,270 




30,231 




551.577 




96,755 




5,360 




25,720 




17,950 
105,138 


Utah 


5,958 




42,810 




12,356 




20,848 




15,653 




249,164 




7,185 








10,221 


8,765 


3,366,633 


1,469 


69,159 


$118,381,516 


6,250,045 







GENERAL INDEX. 



A. 

Acadia College, Nova Scotia, 545. 
Act of Toleration, the, 346. 
Adams, John, 405. 
Adrianus : 

refuses to baptize infants, 71. 

accused of heresy, 71. 
jElfric, on administering the Eucharist to children at bap- 
tism, 74. 
Affusion : 

not depicted in early Christian art, 90. 

oil, not water, the liquid of afl'usion, 97. 

the cup of Alba, 100, 101. 

no evidence of in the Catacomb pictures, 163. 
Africa, missions in, 446, 447. 
Africa, North. [See Carthage, Councils of.J 
Ainsworth's Confession on the proper attitude of govern- 
ment toward religion, 158. 
Aix, baptistery at, 81. 
Albigenses, the, 9. 
Alden, Noah, 407. 

Alexander, Archibald, relations to the Baptists, 353. 
Alford, Dean, on province of elders in Apostolic Church, 

36. 
Alfred the Great compels the Danes to be baptized, 73. 
Allegory in early Christian art, 89. 
Allen, Ichabod, 365. 
Allen, John, 299. 
Allen, Marvin, 506. 
Allen, Eufus, 365. 
Allen, Stephen, 365. 
Alline, Henry, 540, 541. 
Alline, Movement, the, 540. 
Amarapura, Burma, 435. 
Ambrose, on apostolic succession, 3. 
America, British. [See British America.] 
American and Foreign Bible Society, 517. 
American Baptist Home Mission Society, 464. 
American Baptists. [See Baptists, American.] 
American Bible Society, 514. 
American Bible Union, 527. 
Ampulla, the, 100, 101. 
Amsterdam Confession, the: 

proclaims religious freedom, 157. 

declares that infants dying in infancy are saved, 157. 

upholds liberty of conscience, 158. 
Anabaptists : 

Baptists so named in former times, 51. 

origin of the term in England, 140. 
Anderson, Christopher, 224, 225. 
Anderson, G. W., 506. 
Anderson, Martin B., 487, 488. 
Andrews, Elisha, 547. 
Angus, Joseph, 237, 238. 
Anointing : 

baptized persons anointed with oil, 94, 95. 

origin of and reasons for the practice, 95, 96. 
Apostles, the : 

Christ's promises to, 5. 

unmixed purity for all time not pledged to them, 5. 

martyrdom of the, 29. 
Apostolic Church : 

Ripley on what constitutes an., 9. 

must be first pure, 9. 

rights of, 26. 

common faith and love in, 27. 



Apostolic Church— Continued. 
missionary zeal in, 28. 
officers and ordinances, 31. 
poverty of, 31, 32. 

community of goods, 32. 

the Church at Jerusalem, 32, 33. 

deacons, 33, 34. 

deaconesses, 35, 36. 

presbyters, or elders, 36. 

pastors, 36, 37. 

baptism the first ordinance, 40. 

the place filled by baptism, 42. 

subjects fit for baptism in the, 44. 

infant baptism unknown to, 44. 

the Lord's Supper, 48, 49. 

Baptist copy of the, 50. 
Apostolic succession : 

Christ never promised organic visibility to his 
Church in perpetuity, 4. 

definition of the belief in, 4. 

unbroken succession not a true test of, 8. 

visible descent not a proper test, 8. 

a contradiction of all reliable history, 9. 

Stevens, Abel, on, 9. 

New Testament succession, 11. 
Appendix, London, the, 336. 
Ararat, Mount, Mission Church at, 449. 
Arians, practiced trine baptism, 75. 
Arnold, Matthew, on the Christ of the Gospels, 6. 
Arnold of Brescia, 64. 
Arnoldists, 116. 
Arracan, mission to, 440. 
Art, early Christian, 84. 

allegorical pictures, 89. 

no affusion depicted, 90. 
Ashton, James, 329. 
Ashton, Joseph, 327. 
Asia, missions to, 434. 
Askew, Anne : 

sketch of, 151. 

tortured, 151. 

burnt at Smithfield, 151. 
Aspersi, the, 162. 
Aspersion, or Sprinkling. 

permitted by Council of Ravenna, 130. 

allowed by the Prayer-Book of 1549, 131. 

becomes the rule in England, 132. 

declared legal by the Westminster Directory, 132. 

opponents of, among English Baptists, 136. 

prevails despite opposition, 137. 

Baptists not the only people who resisted, 137. 
Assam, mission to, 441. 
Associations, Baptist: 

Philadelphia, 335, 336. 

Newport, 337. 

Charleston, 337. 

Kehukee, 337. 

Warren, R. 1., 337-342. 

New York, 376. 

Maryland, 379. 

Vermont, 389. 

Georgia, 395. 

Charleston. 432. 

Nova Scotia, 540. 

New Brunswick, 541. 

Haldimand, Canada, 548. 

Upper Canada, 548. 



594 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Associations, Baptist — Continued. 

Ottawa, 549. 

Victorian, 558. 

South Australian, 558. 
Atlanta, Ga., Seminaries at, 470. 
Auckland, New Zealand, 559. 
Australia, Baptists of, 557. 

[See New Zealand, Queensland, South Austra- 
lia, Tasmania, Western Australia, etc.J 
Austria, mission work in, 449. 
Authors, Baptist. [See the different surnames.] 

famous American, 472. 

15. 

Backus, Isaac, sketch of his career and influence, 340, 

398, 399. 
Backus, Jay S., 468. 
Bacon, Leonard, 416. 
Badly, John, martyrdom of, 66. 
Bainham, James, 67. 

martyred in the days of Henry VIII., 308. 
Baldwin, Thomas, 386, 434, 472. 

his famous hymn, 386, 434, 472. 
Baltimore, Md., Baptist Churches of, 380. 
Bampfiekl, Francis: 

founder of the Seventh-Day Baptists, 201. 

sketch of, 201. 
Bangkok, Siam, 442. 
Baptism in England — gradual change from immersion to 

sprinkling, 135-139. [See Baptists, English.] 
Baptism, Ordinance of: 

the first ordinance in the Apostolic Churches, 40. 

common abuse of, 41. 

declared to be from heaven by Christ, 41. 

Jacob, Dr., on, 41. 

Canon Liddon on, 42. 

the place filled by, 42. 

scholars on, 43, 44. 

subjects of in the early Church, 44, 45. [55. 

maintained as of apostolic and divine appointment, 

as practiced in the second century, 57. 

fees imposed for baptizing infants, 71. 

in the Middle Ages, 71. 

political baptisms, 73. 

warm water often anciently used, 77. 

Easter, Pentecost, and Epiphany anciently the ordi- 
nary times of, 79. 

pictures of ancient baptisms, 84-103. 

Waldensian beliefs on, 117. 

'Teaching of the Twelve Apostles' on baptism in 
running water, 92. 

anointing the baptized with oil, 94, 96, 97. 

controversies concerning a valid baptism in England, 
166, 167. 

[See Immersion, Trine Immersion.] 
Baptist Church, a, is a congregation, not a denomination 

of congregations, 9. 
Baptist Churches : 

have we<a visible succession of? 1. 

diversities of doctrine among the early sects, 10. 

eary records wantonly destroyed, 10. 

their historians forced to write against great odds, 10. 

Christ their life, 1£. 

what constitutes Baptist history, 12. 

their affinity to the Apostolic Churches, 51. 

Associations formed, 335. 
Baptist History : 

first sentence in, 13. 

opening chapter nf, 14. 
Baptist, John the. [See John the Baptist.] 
Baptist Missionary Union, 456. 
Baptist Union, the, 237. 
Baptisteries : 

in the Middle Ages, 71. 

ancient baptisteries, 76. 

in the beginning were simply bathing-places, 77. 

first built 319 A.D., 77. 

earliest existing baptistery, 78. 

erected in distinct buildings, 78. 

introduced into churches, 78. 



Baptisteries — Continued. 

at Pisa, Borne, and Florence, 78, 79, 80. 

called into existence by immersion, 78. 

fall into disuse, 79. 

architectural features, 80. 

at Aix, Verona, Parma, Pistoia, and Milan, 81, 82. 

natural baptistery in Northumberland, S2. 

in the Catacomb'of'St. Ponziano, 93. 

Arian baptistery at Bavenna, 98. 
Baptistery of St. John "at Kavenna, 94. 
Baptistery of Constantine at Borne, 97. 
Baptistery of St. Sophia, Constantinople, 81. 
Baptists, The : 

treat debtors to individual reformers, 6. 
istinguishing marks, 9. 

should separate their history from all doubtful ma- 
terial, 9. 

misunderstood and maligned, 11. 

a peculiar people, 11. 

a people of one book, 11. 

accounted as heretics, 11. 

originally named Anabaptists, Mennonites, and Wal- 
denses, 51. 

their peculiarities, 52. 

possess no formulated creed, 52. 

maintain the doctrine of regeneration by the Holy 
Spirit, 54. 

baptism and the Lord's Supper maintained, 55. 

deprecate any union of Church and State, 55. 

opposed to religious persecution, 56. 

doctrines of the Apostolic Churches reproduced in 
the Baptists of the present day, 56. 

their theory of the Lord's Supper, 316. 

in the Bevolutionary War, 396. 

demand religious liberty, 397. 

action of the Massachusetts Congress, 406. 

their patriotism during the Bevolutionary War, 409. 

desperate contests for freedom, 410. 

Baptist Bevolutionary soldiers, 411. 
Baptists, American : 

Colonial period, 268. 

Pilgrims and Puritans, 268. 

Chauncey and Knollys, 294. 

Miles and the Swansea Church, 294. 

Boston Baptists, the, 306. 

South Carolina, 324. 

Maine, 324. 

Pennsylvania, 324. 

New jersey, 324. 

Virginia Baptists, the, 344. 

Baptists of Connecticut and New York, 359. 

Bevolutionary War and the, 396. 

American Baptists and constitutional liberty, 416. 

foreign missions, 434. 

home missions, 456. 

struggles for constitutional liherty, 416. 

Virginia Convention, the, 418. 
preachers, 472. 
educators, 472. 
authors, 472. 
Baptists, Boston: 

persecutions of, 306. 
sympathy for them punished, 309. 
whipping declared unlawful, 311. 
reaction from persecution, 317. 
a Church gathered, 319. 
right of petition denied, 322. 
their meeting-house nailed up, 323. 
Baptists, British : 

rise of Associations, 207. 

London Assembly, the, 208. 

eminent Baptists, 209. 

quaint customs among, 216, 217. 

marriage service, the, 216. 

love-feasts before the Lord's Supper, 217. 

ministerial clubs, 217. 

Baptist Union, the, 237. 

ministerial education, 237. 

notable educators, 237, 238. 

[See Particular Baptists, Seventh-Day Bap- 
tists, etc] 



GENERAL INDEX. 



595 



Baptists, English : 

practice of, 140. 

persecutions, 142. 

noteworthy immersions among, 142. 

practiced immersion prior to 1641, 143, 144. 

alleged indecent practices, 147, 148. 

early Baptists in England, 148. 

spread of their doctrines, 149. 

English martyrdoms, 149. 

first English general Baptist Church, 157. 

rapid increase, 162. 

confusion of 1643, the, 164. 

' Valid Baptism ' controversy, 166, 167. 

distinguished themselves from Pedobaptists, 172. 

Bunyan, John, 177. 

in the Commonwealth and the Restoration, 189. 

controversy on singing, 198. 

Seventh-Day Baptists, 201. 

James II. and indulgence, 202. 

Toleration Act, the, 203. 

' Orthodox Creed,' 203, 205, 207. 

Calvinistic Confession, the, 203. 

liberty of conscience, 204. 

what Baptists asked for, 205. 
Baptists, German, 106. 
Baptists, Irish: 

origin and historical sketch of, 219. 

early Churches, 220. 

Irish Mission Society, the, 236. 
Baptists, Scottish: 

early traces of Baptist principles in Scotland, 221. 

children of Scottish monarchs dipped, 221. 

founding of Churches after the Reformation era, 221. 

Cromwell and the Baptists, 222. 

never numerous, 226. 
Baptists, Virginia, 345 el aeq. [See Virginia, Baptists of. J 
Baptists, Welsh : 

notable founders among, 248, 249, 250. 

tithes, the question of, 251. 

debate and persecution, 252. 

relief gained by the Toleration Act, 253. 

Associational Sermon, the, 253. 

increase of Churches, 254. 

controversies, 254. 

Calvinistic controversy, the, 255. 

the Welsh Fathers, 256. 

colleges, 257. 

prosperity of the Churches, 267. 
Haptizo, in Bible translation in India, 235. 
Barbadoes, Lot, Philadelphia, 332. 
Barber, Edward, 164. 
Barbour, P., on Smyth's baptism, 146. 
Barebone, Praise-God, 165. 
Basle, Switzerland, 70. 
Bassas, the, mission to, 446. 
Baths, Roman, used for baptismal purposes, 76. 
Baxter, Richard : 

relations to Walter Cradoek, 135. 

opposition to immersion, 138. 

concessions of, 145. 
Baylor Female College, 498. 
Baynes, Thomas Spencer, 227. 
Beck: 

on the rite of baptism, 47. 

on the reasons for the existence of divers Churches, 
56. 
Bede, Venerable, account of early English baptisms, 129. 
Bedgewood, Nicholas, 390. 
Beebee, Alexander M., 505. 
Benedict, David, 500. 
Benedict Institute, Columbia, S. C, 469. 
Bonnet, Bartlett, 354. 
Bennett, Alfred, 476. 
Bergamo, Conference of, 124. 
Bible, the: 

necessity for harmony with the, 4. 

translations in India, 235. 
Bible Revision, 520, 521, 523, 528. 
Bible Revision Association, 538. 
Bible Translation and Bible Societies, 513. 
Bible Translation Society, 236. 



Bible Union, the American, 527. 

Bill, 1. E 542. 

Bishop, Nathan, 470, 471. 

Bishoprics, sale of in France and Spain, 71. 

Bishops in the Apostolic Church. [See Pastors.] 

not the successors, of the Apostles, 39. 

diocesan episcopacy, 40. 
Bishops, pride, covetousness, and iniquity of in the 

Middle Ages, 71. 
Blackwell, Christopher, 327. 
Blake of Tamworth, on dipping of infants, 132. 
Block Island, Baptists of, 371. 
Boardman, George Dana, 387, 437, 439. 
Bohemian Brethren, the, 65. 
Bolles, David and Matthew, 365. 
Booth, Abraham, 218. 
Boston Baptists. [See Baptists, Boston.] 
Boston, Mass. : 

first Baptist Church in, 319. 

Baptist Churches founded in, 338, 339. 
Bosworth, Newton, 549. 
Botsford, Edmund, 390, 391. 
Boucher, Joan, martyrdom of, 152, 153. 
Bowne, John, 329. 
Boyce, James P., 496. 
Bradford, on apostolic succession, 4. 
Brantford, Canada, 548. 
Brantly, W. T., 503. 
Brazil, mission to, 458. 
Bright, Edward, 505. 
British America : 

Baptist press ofj 542. 

educational institutions, 544. 

revival in Eastern Canada, 548. 

the struggle for freedom of conscience, 549. 

Clergy Reserves Question, the, 549. 

University Question, the, 550. 

'Family Compact,' the, 551. 

periodicals, 552. 

foreign missions, 552. 

educational work, 553. 

[See the various provinces.] 
Brittane, James, 298. 
Broadus, John A., 488, 489. 
Broady, K. O., 454. 
Brooks, Kendall, 506. 
Brown, Hugh Stowcll, 240, 241, 243. 
Brown John, 185. [See Bunyan, John.] 
Brown, John and Samuel, persecution by the Puritans, 

275. 
Brown, Joseph E., 393. 
Brown, Nathan, 441, 445, 506. 
Brown, Robert, 155. 
Brown University, 342. 
Brownists, the, 155. [See Independents.] 

obtained their notions of Church independence from 
the Dutch Baptists, 269. 
Bullock, Richard, 299. 

Bunsen, Baron, quoted on infant baptism in the Apos- 
tolic Church, 46. 
Bunyan, John : 

birth and boyhood, 177, 178. 

not a gipsy, 177. 

origin of the family of Bunyan, 177. 

marriage, 178. 

conversion, 178. 

immersed in the Ouse, 178. 

stirring times in which he lived, 178. 

imprisonment, 179. 

his ' Pilgrim's Progress,' 180. 

wide influence of Bunyan's great book, 180, 181. 

released from jail, 181. 

his fame as a preacher in Bedford and London, 181, 
182. 

his tenderness, 183. 

death of, 183. 

honored by England, 184. 

his tomb, 184. 

his monument at Bedford, 185. 

opposes infant baptism, 186. 

was a Baptist, 188. ' 



596 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Burger, Benjamin, 354. 

Burleigh, Va., first Baptist Church in Virginia organized 

at, 347. 
Burma : 

missions to, 435. 

mission of Nova Scotia Baptists to, 543. 
Burpee, K. E., 543. 
Burrage, Henry S., 503. 
Burrows, Amos, 365. 
Burrows, Peleg, 365. 
Burrows, Roswell, 365. 
Burrows, Silas, 365. 

Busher, Leonasd, case of in England, 143. 
Butler, Ezra, 389. 
Butterworth, John, 299. 



Caffyn, Matthew, 208. 

Caliehyth, Council of, enjoins immersion, 129. 

Oallender, Elisha, 338. 

Cullender, Ellis, 323, 338. 

Callender, John, 500. 

Calvin, John, on apostolic succession, 4. 

Calvinistic Baptist Churches : 

in London, 163. 

Confession of Faith of the English, 163. 
Calvinistic Confession, the, 203. 
Calvinistic controversy imported into Virginia, 350. 
Camden, on the natural baptistery near ifarbottle, 82. 
Campbell, Alexander, sketch of his career, 355, 356. 
Campbell, Duncan, 547. 
Campbell, George, on elders and bishops in the Apostolic 

Church, 39. 
Campbell Thomas, 355. 
Canada, Baptists of, 539. [See the various provinces.] 

Baptist, press of, 542. 
Canterbury, Convocation of, 530. 
Caperton, A. C, 504. 
Caracalla, public bath, of, 77. 
Carey, Lott, 446. > 

Carey, William : 

birth and descent, 228. 

conversion ; 228. 

self-education, 229. 

commences to preach, 229. 

his missionary enthusiasm, 230. 

starts for India, 230. 

struggles and defeats, 230. 

translates the New Testament, 230. 

literary labors, 231. 

self-support, 231. 

death, 232. 
Carman, James, 373. 
Carson, Alexander, 220. 

on the eldership, 39. 
Castelluzo, cave of, 126. 
Castle, J. II., 554, 555. 
Catacombs : 

early baptistery in the Catacomb of Callixtus, 78. 

pictures in thej 84, 86, 88. 

baptistery of St. Ponziano, 92. 

no evidence of affusion in the Catacomb pictures, 103. 
Cathari of the Novatians, 9, 62. 

Cathcart, on a natural baptistery in Northumberland, 82. 
Cathcart, Robert, 553. 
Cathcart, William, 489, 490, 491. 
Cavaliers, the Virginia: 

not less intolerant than the Puritans of Massachusetts, 
345. 

cruelities'inflicted by, 345, 346. 
Cave, Dr., on immersion, 43. 
Criamberkiin, H'olbrook, 469. 
Chaplin, Jeremiah, 492. 
Chapman, S., 558. 

Charlemagne, imposes fines for nonbaptism of infants, 74. 
Charles II., King of England, death of, 202. 
Chase, Abner and Francis, 384. 
Chase, Irah, 389. 
Chauncey, Charles, 294. 



Chelsea, Council of. [See Calichyth.) 

Childs, James, 350. 

China, missions to, 444. 

Chipman, Thomas H., 541. 

Chittagong, India, 435. 

Christ Church, New Zealand, 529. 

Christian Church, the : 

Christ's promises to, 4. 

early defections from the truth in the, 5. 

no one Church has contained all truth, 5. 

visibility never promised by Christ, 5. 
'Christian Index,' the, 502. 
'Christian Keview,' the, ,507. 
'Christian Secretary,' the, 502. 
Christianity : 

position of in the first century A.D., 50. 

political, 73. 

introduced into Norway, 74. 
Chrysostom, on the baptism of fire, 92. 
Church, Leroy, 506. 

Church of Rome, perversions of doctrine in the, 5, 6. 
Church, Pharcellus, 505. 

Church, the Apostolic. [See Apostolic Church. J 
Churehwood, Humphrey, 324. 
Clarke, John, 289 et seq. 
Clarke, W. N., 556. 
Clay, Eleazar, 349. 

Clergy, vices of in Britain in the Middle Ages, 72. 
Cloven tongues, the. [See Pentecost.] 
Cohansey, N. J., Baptist Church at, 331. 
Coleman, James M., 463. 

Coleman, on immersion in the primitive Church, 44. 
Colgate, William, 464, 533. 
Collier, William, 376. 
Columbian University, 482, 483. 
Communion. [See Lord's Supper.] 
Community of goods, 32. 
Conant, John, 389. 
Conant, T. J., 389,495, 534. 
Condy, Jeremiah, 338. 
Cone, Spencer II., 524, 525 ; 526. 
Confessions. [See the various titles.] 
Confusion of 1643, the, 164. 
Congo Mission, the, 446. 
Connecticut, Baptists of: 

early records ; 359. 

Valentine Wightman, 360. 

oppressive taxes, 361. 

Baptist students expelled from Yale College, 362. 

Separatists and Baptists unite, 363. 

Wnitefield's preaching, 364. 

struggles of the Church at Norwich, 364. 

final triumph, 365. 

eminent modern preachers among, 365. 
Constantine, baptistery of, 97. 
Constantinople, baptistery of St. Sophia, 81. 
Constitution, the U. S. : 

dissatisfaction with Article VI of, 424. 

proposed amendment to, 425. 

amended, 427. 
Convention, Baptist General, for foreign missions, 456. 
Convention, Southern Baptist, 456. 
Convocation of Canterbury, 530. 
Corcoran, W. W.,483. 
Corinthiau Church, the, introduces startling abuses in 

the observance of the Lord's Supper, 49. 
Cote, W. N., 459. 

Cotton, John, persecutes Boston Baptists, 309, 310. 
Covenant, the Half-way, 337. 
Cradock, Walter: 

on immersion in England, 132. 

liberal views of, 133. 

argument from expediency, 134. 

reiatians,with.Baxter, 135. 

biographical sketch of,- 135, 136. 
Craig, Elijah, 350, 351. 
Craig, Lewis, 350. 
Cramp, J. M., 546. 552 
Crandall, James, 306. 
jCrandall, Reuben, 547. 
: Crane, William, 382. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



697 



Crane, William Carey, 382. 

Crawford, John, 553. 

Crawley, A. K. K., 543. 

Crawley, E. A., 544, 545, 546. 

Crisp, Tobias, 208. 

Cromwell, Oliver, relations to the Baptists, 222. 

Crozer Theological Seminary, 497. 

Culdees and Bards, the Welsh, 248. 

Cuminings, E. E., 387, 388. 

Currie, G. V., 551. 

Curry, JabezL. M., career, influence, character, 357, 35S. 

Cushman, Elisha, 502. 

Cutter, 0. T., 441. 

Cyril of Jerusalem, on the baptism of fire, 92. 

D. 

Dale, Sir Thomas, code of Virginia laws promulgated 

by, 345. 
Dalhousie College, N. S., 544. 

David of Augsburgon Waldensian baptismal beliefs, 118. 
Davidson, Samuel, on the eldership in the Apostolic 

Churches, 39. 
Davies, Benjamin, 552. 
Davies, John Phillips, 256. 
Davies, Thomas Bees, 264. 
Davis, Noah, 382. 
Dawson, John E., 392. 
Dawson, Martin, 354. 
Day, John, 457. 
Deaconesses : 

province of, 35, 36. 

Grotius on, 35. 

ordained by form, 36. 
Deacons : 

qualifications in the Apostolic Church, 33. 

not ministers, 34. 

instructions to, in the Epistles, 34, 35. 
Dean, William, 444. 
Denk, John: 

Denmark, mission work in, 449. 
Denne, Henry, 142. 

sketch of his life and death, 174, 175. 
Dermout, on the affinity dfVBaptist Churches with the 

Apostolic Churches, 51. 
Deuell, William, 299. 
Djckerson, J. S., 506. 
Dimock, Daniel, 539. 
Dimock, Joseph, 541, 542. 
Dimock, Shubael, 539. 
Diocesan Episcopacy, 40. 
Diocletian, public baths of, 77. 
Dipping. [See Immersion.] 
Dodge, Ebenezer, 493. 
Dodge, Jeremiah, 372. 
Dodge, Thomas and Tristram, 372. 
Domestic Missions. [See Missions, Home.] 
Domitian : 

disastrous results of his rule, 50. 

pollutes the temples, 50. 

inflamed against the Jews, 50. 
Douatists, 61. 

Dove, the Holy, in early Christian art, 93, 99. 
Dowling, H., 559. 
Drake, John, 331. 
Drinker, Edward, 320, 321. 
Dungan, Thomas, 328. 
Dunham, Edmund, 331. 
Dunn, Hugh, 331. 
Dunster, Henry : 

rejects infant baptism, 317. 

sketch of, 317, 318. 



Eager, J. H., 459. 

Early Church, symbols in, 86. 

Easter anciently a time for baptism, 79. 

Eaton, George, Jane, and John, 327. 

Eaton, Geo. W., 493. 



Eaton, Isaac, 336. 

Eaton, Sarah, 327. 

Ed^ren, J. A., 454. 

Editors, Famous Baptist, 501-507. ["See the various 

periodicals and surnames.] 
Education, early efforts for, 484. 

Educational Institutions, Baptist. [Seethe various titles.] 
Educators, Famous American Baptist, 472. [See the indi- 
vidual names.] 
Edwards, John, 547. 
Edwards, Jonathan, 388. 
Edwards, Morgan: 

sketch of his life and labors, 342. 

death, 343, 500. 
Edwards, Thomas, 167. 

Edwin, King (of England), immersed at York, 129. 
Elders : 

duties and powers of, 36. 

Alford on, 36. 

plurality of elders, 38. 

identical with the bishops, 38. 

Carson, Campbell, and Davidson on, 39. 
Ellis, Robert, 264. 
Emblem, John, 338. 

Endicott, Governor, persecutes Boston Baptists, 309. 
English Baptists, the, establish foreign missions, 456. 
Ephrem Syrus on Christ's baptism, 92. 
Epiphany anciently a time for baptism, 79. 
Episcopacy, Diocesan, 40. 
Episcopate, efforts to establish an American, 422. 

resisted in Virginia, 423. 
Epukopoi, 37. 

Ethelred, King (of England), his immersion, 129. 
Eucharist. [See Lord's Supper.] 
Europe, American missions to, 434, 447. 
Evans, Caleb, 214, 256. 
Evans, Christmas, 256, 259, 260, 261. 
'Examiner, The,' 505. 
Eyers, Nicholas, 369. 

early Baptist preaching in New York, 370. 



F. 

Farmer, John, 332. 

Farnham, John, 320. 

Featley, Dr., on immersion among English Baptists, 144. 

Female Education, much attention given to by American 

Baptists, 498. 
Fifth Monarchy Men, 175. 

defeated, and their leaders slain, 176. 
Finch, T., 547. 

Finland, missionary work in, 454. 
Fire, traditional baptism of, 91. 

Chrysostom and Cyril on, 92. 
Fish, the, in early Christian art, S4, 85. 
Fisher, S., resists sprinkling as an innovation in England, 

136. 
Fletcher, Asaph, 431. 
Florence : 

baptistery of, 80. 

Synod of, 141. 
Font, Baptismal, comes into use, 79. 
Foreign Missions. [See Missions, Foreign.] 
Foster, Benjamin, 342. 
Foster, John, 23S, 239. 
Foulkes, Richard, 256. 
Fox, George, 201. 
Francis, Enoch, 256. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 466, 467. 
Fredericton, N. S., 544. 
Freedmen, mission 'work among the, 468, 469. 

seminaries, 470. 
Friends, Society of, its formation of interest to Baptists, 

201. 
Fuller, Andrew, 230, 232. 

his immortal work, 233, 234. 
Fuller, Richard, sketch of his career, 380, 381. 
Funk, Dr.. on rhe rise of sprinkling, 141. 
Furman, Richard. 378. 
Fyfe, Robert A., 552, 553. 



598 



GENERAL INDEX. 



G. 

Gailhabaud, on disuse of the baptistery, 79. 

Gale, John, 209. 

Galileo, germ of the idea of the telescope, 6. 

Galuaha; Jonas, 389. 

Gangroena, 133, 167. 

Gano, John, 337, 378, 463. 

origin, career, and preaching, 373, 374, 375, 376. 

Eersonal description of, 378. 
iographical sketch, 413. 
Gano, Stephen, 473, 474, 475. 
Garos, the, mission to, 442. 
Garrettson, ireeborn, 542. 
Gell, on form of the ancient bath, 77. 
General Court of Massachusetts: 

threatens those who oppose infant baptism with 
banishment, 301. 

bitterness of toward the Baptists relaxed, 338. 
' Geneva Jiggs,' 197. 
Georgia, Baptists of: 

early settlers and preachers, 390. 

Botsford's ministry, 391. 

extensive revivals, 391. 

famous names among, 392. 

demands for religious liberty, 394. 

present prosperity, 395. 

statistics, 395. 
Germany, mission work in, 447. 
Gerrits, Lubberts, 157. 
Gesenius, opinion of Baptist Churches, 51. 
Gibson, William, 559. 
Gilford, Andrew, 200. 
Gilford, Andrew, 2d, 200. 
Gill, John, 209. 
Gilmour, John, 548. 
Goethe, on the person of Christ, 7. 
Going, Jonathan, 464, 465. 

Goodman, J. E.', 506. ■-• ••*_ 

Goulburn, Dean, on baptism as a divine institution, 43. 
Gould, Thomas, 319. 

imprisoned and persecuted, 320. 
Grand Assembly of Virginia, 346. 
Grantham, Thomas, 200. 
Graves, H. A., 502. 
Graves, J. R., 504. 
Graves, K. H., 457. 
Grayson, William, 425. 
Great Britain, Baptists in : 

immersion in England, 128, 140. 

John Smyth and the Commonwealth, 156. 

John Bunyan, 177. 

Commonwealth and Restoration, 189. 

liberty of conscience, 204. 

Baptist Associations, 204. 

Stennetts, the, 204. 

Irish Baptists, 204. 

Scotch and English Baptists, 221. 

Baptist missions, 221. 

men of note, 221. 

Welsh -Baptists, 247. 
Gregory Nazianzen, on apostolic succession, 3. 
Gregory of Constantinople, on infant, baptism, 72. 
Gregory the Great, upholds trine baptism, 75. 
Griffith, Abel, 336. 
Griffith, Benjamin. 382. 
Griffith, Morgan, 256. 
Grosvenor, Cyrus P., 502. 

Grotius, on deaconesses in the Apostolic Church, 35. 
Groton, Conn., Valentine Wiehtman at, 360. 
Grover, James, 329. 
Guild, Reuben A., 486, 487. 
Gurney, William B., 239. 
Gweut, John, 248, 

H. 

Hackett, Horatio B., 535. 
Haldane, James Alexander, 223. 
Haldane, Robert, 223. 
Half-way Covenant, the, 337. 



Halifax, N. S., 544. 
University, 545. 
Hall, Robert : 

biographical sketch, 242. 
doctrines and eloquence, 243. 
views of ordinances, 244. 
Ham, James, 557. 
Hamburg, Germany : 

formation of a new Church at, 51. 
missionary work in, 448. 
persecution at, 448, 449. 
Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, 492. 
Hampden-Sidney College, 353. 
Hand, the, imposition of in baptism in early Christian 

pictures, 101, 102. 
Hand, the right, left unimmersed in male Scottish chil- 
dren, 130. 
Harbottle, England, ancient natural baptistery near, 82. 
Harding, Harris, 541. 
Harding, Theodore, 541. 
Harding, Theodore Setb, 542. 
Harris, John, 256. 
Harris, Joseph, 259. 
Harris, Samuel, 350, 351. 
Harrison, Major-Gen.: 
sketch of, 168. 

hanged, drawn, and quartered, 169. 
Harrison, Robert, 155. 
Hart, John, 412. 
Hart, Oliver, 390, 484. 
Hascall, Daniel, 389, 492. 
Haveloek, Sir Henry, 239, 240. 
Haverfordwest College, Wales, 257. 
Hays, Edward, 347. 
Hazel, John, 2»9. 
Helwys, Thomas, 156. 

with others forms the first general Baptist Church 
in England, 157. 
Henry ,-'Patrick, his sympathy with the Baptists of Vir- 
ginia, 419, 420. 
Henthada, mission to, 440. 
Herzog, on immersion, 44. 

on the C'hristianization of the Swedes and Nor- 
wegians, 74. 
Hezekiah, Pool of, 23. 
High Commission, the Court of, 178. 
Hill, Benjamin M., 465, 466, 467, 468. 
Hill, Robert, 446. 
Hill, S. P., 483. 
Hinton, John Howard, 559. 
Hinton, Josiah, 559. 
Historians, Baptist : 

have always written amid great disadvantages, 10, 11. 
dearth of early records, 10. 
Hollis, John, 200. 
Hollis, Thomas, 200. 
Holme, John, 332. 
Holmes, Jonathan, 329. 
Holmes, Obadiah, 299, 306, 329. 
unmercifully whipped, 308. 
Holy Spirit, regeneration by the, a fundamental of Bap- 
tist belief, 54. 
Home Missions. [See Missions, Home.] 
Hopewell Grammar School, 336, 337- 
Hort, Oliver, 378. 
Horton, N. S., 544. 
Horton School, N. S., 544. 
Hovey, Alvah, 494, 
Howard, John : 

residence, near Bedford, 214. 
Stennett's funeral sermon on, 215. 
probably a Baptist, 216. 
Howells, Griffith, 253. 
Hoyt, J. B., 468. 
Hubbard, John, 547. 
Hubmeyer, Balthazar, 68. 

Hughes, Archbishop, quoted in reference to infant bap- 
tism, 47. 
Hughes, Joseph, 214. 
Hungary, mission work in, 449. 
Hutchinson, Elijah and Enoch, 387. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



B99 



Hutchinson, John, sketch of, 1G9. 
Hutchinson, Lucy, sketch of, 169. 

Hyde, Edward, Lord Clarendon, persecutes Independ- 
ents, Quakers, :.nd Baptists, 176. 



Iconography, Christian, 88. 
Immersion : 

believers immersed, 20. 

the only true baptism, 21, 22. 

Dr. Cave on the ancient rite, 43. 

Moses Stuart and Paine on, 43, 44. 

Herzog on, 44. 

Cardinal Pullus on the three symbolisms of, 75. 

called the baptisteries into existence, 78. 

in England, 128. 

early authorities enjoining, 129, 130, 131. 

English royal family always formerly immersed, 131. 

single immersion enjoined by Edward Sixth's 
Prayer-Book, 132. 

Westminister Assembly on, 141. 

no new thing in England, 142. 

practiced by English Baptists prior to 1641, 143. 
Independents, the: 

on liberty of conscience, 158. 

frequent debates among, 165. 

controversy on singing, 198. 
Indians, American, missions to, 459, 460, 461. 
Infallibility, Church, 2, 5. 
Infallibility and Church Succession : 

a specious lure, 2. 

central corruption of Rome, 5. 
Infant Baptism : 

unknown among the early Christians, 44, 46. 

Bunsen on, 46. 

various aspects of the question, 46, 47. 

scholars cited on, 47. 

of purely human origin, 47. 

Archbishop Hughes on, 47. 

first instances ot, 61. 

made a source of revenue, 71. 

Adrianus refuses to baptize infants, 71. 

condemned by some ot the Fathers, 72. 

Gregory of Constantinople on, 72. 

well-nigh universal in the ninth century, 72. 

a pagan civil rite, 73. 

fines imposed in lieu of, 74. 

Northumbrian law on, 74. 

dissent from in all ranks of society, 74, 75. 

rejected by Waldensians, 117, 118. 

Massachusetts on, 301. 
Innocent, Pope, on Waldensian views of baptism, 117. 
Irish Mission Society, the, 236. 
Italy, mission to, 458, 459. 
Ivimey, Joseph, 236. 

J. 

Jacob, Dr. : 

on Christian baptism, 41. 

quoted on infant baptism, 47. 
Jacob, Henry, 164. 
James II., riing of England : 

grants indulgence to the Baptists, 202. 

Toleration Act, the, 203. 
Jamestown, Va., religious worship instituted at by Capt. 

John Smith, 344. 
Japan, mission to, 445. 
Jefferson, Thomas : 

alleged influence of Virginian Baptists in molding 
his career, 353, 354. 

his relations to the Virginia Baptists, 417, 419. 
Jenkins, Dr. Joseph, 214. 
Jenkins, John, 262. 
Jerusalem : 

poverty of in early Christian times, 32. 

Church at, 32. 

how the Church at was composed, 33. 
Jessey, Henry, 164, 298. 

Church of, 165. 

sketch of his life and death, 175. 



Jesus Christ: 

did not establish a law of Christian primogeniture, 3. 

never promised to his Churches absolute preservation 
from error, 5. 

tributes to Christ, from skeptics, 6, 7. 

individuality of, 7. 

baptism of, 14. 

principles established by, 17. 

ascension of, 18. 

the only bond of union, 49. 

symbolic names of, 84, 85. 

early baptismal pictures of, 87, 8S. 
Jeter, Jeremiah B., sketch of his career and influence, 

356, 357, 456, 503. 
Jewett, Nathan, 361. 
Jews, The : 

tribal lines obliterated, 8. 

refuse to worship Domitian, 50. 

compulsory baptism of in eighth century, 71. 
Joan of Kent. [See Boucher, Joan. J 
John, Jesus, and the Apostles, 13. 
John the Baptist, validity of his baptism, 16. 
John XIII., Pope, baptizes a bell, 74. 
Johnson, Eraneis, 155. 
Johnstone, J. W., 545. 
Jones, A. L., 457. 

Jones, David, biographical sketch, 414. 
Jones, Hugh, 256, 265, 266. 
Jones, Jenkin, 250. 
Jones, John Taylor, 442. 
Jones, Samuel, 329. 
Jones, Samuel, 337. 
Jones, Samuel, 500. 
Jones, William, 253. 
Jordan, the Kiver, 15. 
'Journal and Messenger,' the, 504. 
Judson, Adoniram, 434, 438. 
Judson, Ann Hasseltine, 434, 437. 
Judson Female Institute, 498. 
Justin, Emperor, commands all unbaptized persons to 

present themselves for baptism, 71. 
Justin Martyr, on anointing in baptism, 95. 

K. 

Karen Mission, the, 436. 

Karen Theological Seminary, 437. 

Keacli, Benjamin, 196. 

persecution, 197. 

prolific writings, 199. 
Reach, Elias, 327, 328. 
Keeling, Henry, 503. 
Kendrick, A. C, 389, 537. 
Kendrick, Ariel, 547. 
Kendrick, Nathanael, 492, 517. 
Kentucky, early Churches in, 462, 463. 
Kiffin MS., the, 144. 
Kittin, William, 163, 164. 

birth and education, 170. 

conversion and preaching, 171. 

great influence of, 171. 

persecution and death, 171. 
Kincaid, Eugcnio, 492. 
King, Alonzo, 387. 
King's College, Windsor, N. S., 544. 
Kittery, Me.. Baptist Church organized at, 324. 
Knollys, Hanserd : 

birth, emigration, and preaching, 173. 

forbidden to preach, and imprisoned, 173. 

writings, 174. 

early career, 296. 

arrives at Boston, 296. 

in London, 297. 

preaches at Piscataqua, Me., 330. 
Knowles, J. D., 503. 

L,. 

Lambert, Robert, 322. 
Langdon, Henry, 559. 
Lasher, 6. W.,'504. 
Lathrop, Edward, 468. 
' Latter-Day Luminary,' 503. 



600 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Launceston, Tasmania, 559. 
Leander, Bishop of Seville, 75. 
Learned, John, 387. 
Lee, Richard Henry, 425. 

Legitimacy of Churches, sanctity the highest title to, 2. 
Leland, Aaron, 389, 431. 
Leland, John, 354, 419, 424. 
biographical sketch, 407. 

preaching, 408. 

great speech in favor of religious toleration, 431. 
Lenthal, Robert, 298. 

Leo III., compels baptism of Jews and Montanists, 71. 
Lewis, William, 257. 

Li°:htfoot, Bishop, on the term ' bishop,' 37. 
Lincoln, Heman, 464. 
Lindsay, T. M., on infant baptism as a pagan civil rite, 

73. 
Literature, American Baptist, 499, 500. 
Lollards, the, 65. 

Welsh adherents, 248. 
London Assembly, the, 208. 
London, Council of, enjoins immersion, 130. 
London Meeting, the, 346. 
Longford, Tasmania, 559. 
Lord's Supper, the, 48. 

design and object of, 48, 49. 

the rite grossly corrupted by the Corinthian Church, 
49. 

maintained as an ordinance by Baptists, 55. 

administered to infants at baptism, 74. 

Loring, James, 502. 
Loxley, Colonel, 412. 
Lund, Eric, 455. 
Lundy ; on affusion, 99. 
Lush, Sir Robert, 239. 



M. 

Maccon, Council of, decrees that bishops must not keep 

mastiffs to worry beggars, 71. 
Maclaren, Alexander, 226, 227. 
Maclay, Archibald, 533, 552. 
Maclay College, Canada "West, 552. 
MacVicar, Malcolm, 555. 

Madison, James, his relations to the Baptists, 421. 
Madison University, 492. 

presidents of, 493. 
Maginnis, John S., 495. 

Man Menla, first female convert in Burma, 437. 
Maine : 

Baptist settlement in, 324, 325. 

conversion of Daniel Merrill, 325, 326. 
Maine Literary and Theological Institution, 492. 
Man, James, 299. 
Mandelay, Burma, 441. 
Manitoba, 548. 
Manning, Edward, 541. 
Manning, James, 337, 541. 

his career and influence, 341, 342, 343. 

biographical sketch of, 402. 

at the Continental Congress, 404. 
Maoris, Baptist work among, 559. 
Mapes, Walter, meets Waldensians, 109. 
Marshall, Abraham, 378. 
Marshall, Daniel, 390, 391. 
Marshall, Martha, 391. 
Marshman, Joshua, 232. 
Martin, James, 559. 
Martyrs : 

early Christian, 59. 

English martyrs, 66. 

Peter Sager, 127. 

English Baptist martyrs, 149. 

Askew, Anne, 151. 

Boucher, Joan, 152, 153. 

Terwoort, Hendrick, 154, 155. 
Maryland, Baptists of: 

founding of the first Church, 379. 

slow growth, 380. 

early history of the Sator Church, 382. 



Maryland — Continued. 

Anti-missionism, 382. 

famous names among, 382. 
Mary Sharp College, 498, 499. 
Mason, Gilbert, 463. 
Mason, Nathan, 539. 
Massachusetts : 

persecution relaxed, 338. 

relaxes her severity toward Baptists during the Revo- 
lutionary War, 398. 

struggle for religious freedom renewed in. 428. 

the Bill of Rights, 429. 

full religious liberty demanded in, 430. 
Massachusetts Bay Colony, Baptists persecuted^ 305. 
Massachusetts Bay Company, not a purely business as- 
sociation, 272. 
Massasoit, 292. 

Mather, Cotton and Increase, 338. 
Maulmain Mission, the, 437, 438. 
Mayflower, the, 268. 
McCoy, James, 464. 
McLaurin, Donald, 547. 
McMaster, William, 551, 553, 554. 
Mead, Silas, 558. 
Meehan, John S., 502. 
Meeks, Joseph, 373. 
Melbourne, Victoria, 557, 558, 559. 
Menno, Simon, 107. 
Mennonites : 

Baptists formerly so called, 51. 

in New York, 366. 
Mercer, Jesse, 379, 500. 
Merrill, Daniel, 325. 
Merrill, Moses, 461. 
Metz, the Waldensians in, 114. 
Mexico, mission to, 458. 
'Michigan Christian Herald,' 506. 

Micmae Indians, Nova Scotian Baptist mission to, 543. 
Middle Ages, corruption of the bishops in, 71. 
Middleborough,Mass., Separatist Church founded at, 340. 
Middleton, Bishop of St. David's, issues an injunction 

forbidding trine immersion, 132. 
Middletown, N. J., early Baptist settlements at, 329, 330. 
Milan, baptistery at, 82. 
Miles, John : 

birth and education, 298. 

emigration, 299. 

organizes the Swansea Church, 299. 

great influence of in Massachusetts, 301. 

death of, 301. 
Milk, children in Ireland sometimes immersed in, 130. 
Miller, Benjamin, 373, 377. 
Miller, William, 389, 390. 
Mills, Colonel, 412. 
Milton, John : 

birth and education, 189. 

studies on the Continent, 189. 

takes part in English aiiaiis, 190. 

his writings, 190. 

his humanity, 191. 

nonconformity, 192. 

expounds Baptist principles and positions, 193. 

views of infant baptism, 194. 

called an 'Anabaptist,' 195. 

John Tolland on, 196. 
Missionaries. [See the various surnames.] 
Missionary Papers, Baptist, 501, 502. 
Missionary Societies, Canadian. [See British America. J 
Missionary Union, the Baptist, 456. 
Missions, Foreign : 

Asia and Europe, 434. 

Karen Mission, the, 436. 

Maulmain Mission, the, 437. 

Tavoy Mission, the, 438. 

Henthada and Arracan, 440. 

Prome and Assam, 441. 

Siam Mission, the, 442. 

Telugus, the, 443. 

China and Japan, 444, 445. 

Congo Mission, the 446. 

German Missions, 447. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



601 



Missions, Foreign — Continued. 

Swedish Mission, the, 450. 

Shanghai and Africa, 456, 457. 

Brazil and Mexico, 458. 

Italian Mission, the, 459. 
Missions, Home : 

Indian Missions, 459. 

Freedmen, mission to the, 468. 
Monita, on Waldensian baptismal beliefs, 118. 
Montreal, Quebec, Baptists and Churches of, 548. 
Moody, Lady Deborah, 304. 
Morehouse, H. L., 470. 

Morgan, Abel, sketch of his career, 332, 333, 336, 484. 
Morgan, William, 265, 
Morse, Asahel, 362. 
Morton, Ambrose, 298. 
Morton, John, 166. 
Morton, Salmon, 463. 
Moulton, Ebenezer, 539. 

Moung Nau, first Baptist convert in Burma, 435. 
Munro, Andrew, 355. 
Munster, city of, 105. 

w. 

' National Baptist, The,' 506. 

National Theological Institute, 469. 

Neander, on elders and bishops in the Apostolic Church, 

39. 
Nelson, New Zealand, 559. 

Nerva, the Emperor, forbids religious persecution, 50. 
New Brunswick, Baptists of, 541. 
New Hampshire, Baptists of: 

early struggles, 383. 

Rachel Scammon, 383. 

Half-way Covenant, the, 383. 

the Newton Church organized, 384. 

conversion of Dr. Shepherd, 385. 

settlement at ' Baptist Hill,' 3S6. 

recent statistics, 387. 

famous ministers, 387, 388. 
New, Isaac, 558. 
New Jersey : 

first Baptist Church in, 329. 

religious freedom guaranteed in, 329. 

planting of Baptist Churches in, 334. 
New Lights, the, 362, 363. 
New Testament, translated into Assamese, 441. 
New Tcstantent Period, the : 

officers and ordinances of the Apostolic Church, 31. 
New York, Baptists of: 

conventicles and meetings forbidden, 366. 

early religious persecution of, 366, 367. 

Lady Moody and Gravesend, 367. 

Wickenden, Rev. William, 368. 

preaching and baptizing in New York, 369. 

first Baptist Church, 370, 371. 

how connected with Block Island Baptists.371, 372. 

the first Church during the Revolutionary War, 375. 

new Churches formed, 376. 

the second Baptist Church, 376. 

Bethel Church, 376. 

Fayette Street Church, 376. 

Oliver Street Church, 376. 

Epiphany, Church of the, 376. 

Baptist Association formed, 376. 
New Zealand, 559. 
Newman, A. H., 554, 555. 
Newport, R. I., Church at, 278 et seq. 
Newton, Isaac, discovery of the law of gravity, 6. 
Newton Theological Institution, 494. 
Nice, Council of, affirms doctrine of transubstantiation, 

83. 
Nilson, Frederick O., 451. 

banished from Sweden, 452. 
Ningpo, mission to, 445. 
Noddle's Island, 321, 323. 
Nordin, Robert, 347. 
North Carolina: 

traces of early Baptists in, 347. 

early pioneers, 377. 



North Carolina — Continued. 

open-air meetings, 378. 

an association formed, 379. 

famous names among, 379. 
North, Kobert, 372. 
Northrup, Geo. W., 497. 
North-west Territory, 548. 
Norway, Christianity introduced into, 74. 
Norwich, Conn., struggles of the Baptist Church at, 364. 
Nova Scotia, Baptists of, 539. 

early settlements, 539, 540. 

the first Baptist Association in, 540, 541. 

earliest missionary society, 542, 543. 
Novatians, rise of the, 60. 
Nowel, Increase, 309. 

O. 

Oglethorpe, Governor, 390. 
Old Lights, 364. 
Olmstead, J. W., 502. 
Oncken, J. G., 447, 448, 449. 

on the formation of a new Church at Hamburg in 
1834, 51. 
Ongole, India, 443, 444. 
Ontario, 548. 

' Orthodox Creed,' the, 203, 205, 207. 
Osborne, Thomas, 320, 321. 
Osgood, Howard, 535. 
Otsego Association, the, 463. 
Overseers. [See Pastors.] 



Paine, Dr., on immersion, 44. 

Paine, Solomon, 362. 

Painter, Thomas, 303. 

Palestine, poverty of the land, 31. 

Palmer, Elder, 347. 

Palmer, Paul, 377. 

Parker, Joseph, 377. 

Parma, baptistery at, 81. 

Parsons, Stephen, 362. 

Particular Baptists: 

a Church organized at Shrewsbury, England, 163. 

confession of faith, 203. 

first General Assembly, the, 207. 

decline among the, 208. 
Pastors in the Apostolic Church, 36, 37. 

styled presbyters or elders by Hebrew Christians, 36. 

called bishops or overseers Dy the Gentiles, 36. 

are bishops, 37. 

Neander on, 37, 38. 

rule exercised by, 3S. 

false pretensions connected with the word ' bishop,' 
38. 
Paterson, James, 226. 
Patience, Thomas, 220. 
Patton, A. S., 506. 

Paul the Apostle instructs deacons, 34. 
1'aulieians, the, 9, 61. 

Paulinus, Bishop, baptistery of, Northumberland, En- 
gland, 83. 
Peasants' War, the, 104. 
Peck, John M., 464. 
Pedalion, the, 43. 
Pelagius, Pope: 

complains of the Eunomians, 75. 

affirms necessity of trine baptism, 75. ' 
Pennepek, Pa., settlement of early Baptists at, 327. 
Pennsylvania : 

the Baptists of. 326. 

settlement at Pennepek, 327. 
Pentecost: 

power bestowed at, 19. 

anciently a time for baptism, 79. 

the cloven tongues illustrated, 91. 
Periodicals, Baptist, 501, 507. [See the respective titles.] 
Persecution, Religious, abhorred by Baptists every- 
where, 56. 



602 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Persecutions: 

Waldensian persecutions, 112, 115. 

crusade of Simon do Montt'ort against the Waldenses, 
125. 

Baptists in Massachusetts Bay Colony harried, 305. 

of the Boston Baptists, 307. 
Perth, Councils of, tacitly enjoin immersion, 130. 
Perth, Tasmania, 559. 
Petilian. [See Donatists.] 
Peto, Sir Samuel Morton, 239. 
Petrobusians, the, 63. 
Phelps, S. D., 502. 
Philadelphia, Pa. : 

planting of Baptist Churches in, 331, 332. 

First Church, the, 332. 

Philadelphia Association formed, 335. 
Philadelphia Bible Convention, 51S. 
Pictures, allegorical, 89. 

Pictures, Ancient Baptismal, 84, 103. [See List of Il- 
lustrations.] 
Pilgrims and Puritans, differences between, 271. 
Pilgrims, the Plymouth : 

landing, 269. 

solemn compact of, 269, 270. 

liberties in Holland, 270. 

their poverty, 270. 
Pisa, baptistery of, 79, 80, 81. 
Piscataqua, Me. : 

a Church organized at, 330. 

known as ' Anabaptist Town,' 331. 
Piscataqua, N. J., Baptist Church at, 330. 
Pistoia, baptistery at, 82. 
Plymouth, Mass., landing at, 269. 
Poland, mission work in, 449. 
Pompeii, discoveries of ancient baths at, 77. 
Pontypool College, Wales, 257. 
Pool, Bobert: 

attacks the Baptists, 171. 

controversy with Kiflin, 172. 
Poole, William, 559. 

Pools of Jerusalem. [See the various names.] 
Posey, Humphrey, 464. 
Post-Apostolic Age, the: 

baptism and baptisteries in the Middle Ages, 71. 

ancient baptismal pictures, 84. 

the Waldensians, 109. 
Powell, Vavasor, 249. 
Prague, Council of, censures the pride of the higher 

clergy, 72. 
Prayer-Book of 1549, aspersion permitted therein in the 

case of weak infants, 131. 
Prayer-Book of Edward VI., enjoins only a single im- 
mersion, 132. 
Preachers, Noted American Baptist, 472. 
Preger, on Waldensian Church Government, 120. 
Presbyters. [See Elders.] 
Presbytery in the Apostolic Church, 39. 
Price, John, 301. 
Prince Edward Island, 548, 549. 
Pritchard, William, 256. 
Prome, mission to, 441. 
Providence, R. I., Churches of, 278 etseij. 
Prussia, mission work in, 449. 
Pryor, William, 544. 

Pseudo Keinerius, on the Waldensians, 118. 
Publication Society, the Baptist, 508. 
Pullus, Cardinal, on three symbolisms of immersion, 75. 
Puritans, the : 

a different people from the Pilgrims, 271. 

their aversion to the Separatists of Leyden, 271. 

aristocracy, 272. 

founded a state, 273. 

persecuted on principle, 274. 

persecution of the Browns, 275. 
Puritans of Massachusetts, intolerant and inquisitorial, 

313. 
Pyne, John, 373. 

<*• 

Quakers. [See Friends, Society of.] 
persecuted in Virginia, 346. 



Quebec, Province of, Baptist progress in, 547. |See 

Montreal.] 
Queensland, 559. 

R. 

Eand, S. T., 543. 
Hand, Theodore H., 556. 
Randall, Benjamin, 387. 
Rangoon, Burma, 436. 

mission work in, 435. 
Ransom, Elisha, 388. 

Ratram, writes against transubstantiation, 83. 
Ravenna, Council of, aspersion permitted by, 1-30. 
Ray, Simon, Jr., 372. 

Reek, Stevenson, barbarities inflicted on, 345. 
Rees, David, 559. 
Regular Baptists in Virginia, 351. 
'Religious Herald,' the, 503. 
Remington, Stephen, 501. 
Restoration, the English, Baptists in the, 189. 
Revision, Bible, 520, 521, 523, 527. 
Revivals, Baptist, 492. 

general awakening in 1830, 509. 

evangelists, American, 510. 

in Eastern Canada, 548. 
Revolutionary War, the American : 

Baptists in, 396. 

large increase of Churches during, 396. 

difficulties of Baptists in, 397. 

Massachusetts relaxes her severity toward Baptists 
in, 398. 

action ot the Massachusetts Congress, 406. 

Baptist patriotism during, 409. 

Baptist Revolutionary soldiers, 411. 

destruction of the Gaspee, 412. 

Baptist chaplains, 414, 415. 
Rcyner, John, 294. 
Rhees, Morgan John, 258. 
Rheinsburg, baptism at, 108. 
Rhode Island Churches, 278 etseq. 

struggles for constitutional liberty, 417. 
'Rhys, Holy,' 208. 
Rice, Luther, 434, 464, 502. 
Rights, Massachusetts Bill of, 429. 

Ripley, Dr., on what constitutes an Apostolic Church, 9. 
Rippon, John, 210. 
Roberts, I. J., 456. 
Robinson, Ezekiel G., 495. 
Robinson, John, 155, 166. 

Robinson, Robert, quoted on interrupted succession, 2. 
Robinson, Samuel, 542. 
Rochester Theological Seminary, 495. 
Rochester University, 487, 488. 
Rogers, William, biographical sketch, 415. 
Roman Catholic Church, its erroneous notion that it is 

the most ancient communion, 51. 
Rome : 

squalor in, 31. 

baptistery of St. John Lateran, 79, 80. 
Russell, John, 321. 
Russia, mission work in, 449. 
Ry inker, F. L., 450. 



Sager, Peter, martyrdom of, 127. 

Saltonstall, Richard, protests against religious tyranny 

in Massachusetts, 309, 310. 
Sanderson, Bishop, 269. 
Sands, James and Niles, 371. 
Sands, John, 372. 
Sands, William, 503. 
Sandford, Miles, 506. 
San Quala, the Burmese, 439. 
Sarles, John Wesley, 331. 
Sarum, Council of, enjoins immersion, 130. 
Sator, Henry, 379. 
Saunders, John, 557. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



603 



Sawyer, A. W., 546. 

Sawyer, Ephtaim, 3S9. 

Scammon, Rachel, 383. 

Seituate, controversy at, 295. 

Scott, W. P., 558. 

Scottish Baptists. [See Baptists, Scottish.] 

Scriptures, the, translated by Dr. Judson into Burmese, 

438. [See Bible.] 
Screven, William, 324. 
Scriven, General, 411. 
Seares, Barnas, 507. 
Sears, E. G., 507. 

Sea-water, immersion in permitted, 130. 
Se-baptism of Smyth, John, 160, 161. 
Sects, early Christian, 62. 
Seminaries, Baptist Theological, 492. [See the various 

titles.] 
Seminaries, colored, 470. 
Seminaries, female: 

Granville, O., 498. 

Georgetown, Ky., 498. 
Separate Baptists in Virginia, 351. 
Separatism, English, 268. 
Separatists, the, 339. 

White-field's relations to, 340. 
Seven Churches of Asia, 39. 
Seventh-Day Baptists : 

founded, 201. 

never numerous in England, 201. 
Shailer, W. H., 503. 
Shain, Alexander, 559. 
Shanghai, mission to, 457. 
Sharp, Daniel, 477. 
Shenston T. S., 551. 
Sherwood, Adiel, 391, 392 
Ship, the, in early Christian symbolism, 86. 
Shuck, J. L., 456. 
Siam, mission to, 442. 
Siloam, Pool of, 20. 

Simon de Montfort exterminates the Waldenses, 125. 
Simmons, J. B., 468. 
Singing: 

controversy on, 198. 

introduced, 199. 
Single immersion, 75. 
Smith, Justin A., 506. 
Sion Kent. [See Gwext, John.] 
Six-Principle Baptists : 

established a General Assembly, 218. 

tenets of, 218. 
Slade, George, 559. 
Smith, Captain John, establishes religious worship at 

Jamestown, 344. 
Smith, D. A. W., 437. 
Smith, Hezekiah, 337, 385. 

sketch of his career, 334. 

biographical sketch, 413. 
Smith, J. A., 506. 
Smith, Samuel F., 478. 

Smithficld, Dutch Anabaptists burnt at, 149. 
Smyth, John : 

three Confessions of Faith, 142, 143. 

Church at Amsterdam, 145. 

Barbour on his baptism, 145. 

education and persecution, 156. 

flees to Amsterdam, 156. 

with others forms a new Church, 156. 

peculiar tenets, 156. 

offers to join the " Waterlanders," 157. 

death of, 157. 

secession from the Brownists, 158. 

his Se-baptism, 159, 161, 162. 

his baptism probably immersion, 161. 

retracts his error, 165. 
South Australia, 55S. 
South Carolina Baptists stand firmly for religious liberty, 

324. 432. 
Spain, mission to, 455. 

controversy about trine baptism in sixth century, 75. 

Waldensians in, 114. 
Spelman Seminary, Atlanta, Ga., 470. 
41 



Spencer, Bishop of Norwich, threats against Lollards, 

275. 
Spilsbury, John: 

establishes a Church at Wapping, 163. 

his Church immersionist, 165. 
Sprinkling. [See Aspersion".] 
Spur, John, 305, 309. 
Spurden, Charles, 544. 
Spurgeon, Charles II. : 

biographical sketch, 245. 

toil and success, 246. 
Spurgeon, Thomas, 559. 
Squire, Philip, 323. 
' Standard, The,' 506. 
Stanley, Dean: 

on the baptistery at Milan, 82. 

on the pictures in the Catacombs, 84. 
Star Chamber, the, 178. 
Stearns, Shubael, 347, 377. 

his marvelous preaching, 347, 348. 
Stelle, Benjamin, 337. 
Stelle, Isaac. 336. 

Stennett, Edward and Joseph, 211. 
Stennett, Joseph, 2d, 212. 
Stennett. Samuel : 

sketch of, 212, 213. 

his sacred hymns, 214. 

relations to George III., 339. 
Stephen of Borbone on Waldensians, 118. 
Stephens, John, 371. 
Stevens, Abel, on apostolic succession, 9. 
Steward, Ira L., 450. 

Stillingfleet, Bishop, on apostolic succession, 4. 
Stillman, Samuel, 337, 33S. 

sketch of his career, 399, 400, 401. 
Stockholm, Baptists at, 453. 
Stoddard, Solomon. 388. 
Stout, Richard, 329. 

Stow, Baron, conversion, preaching, 386, 387. 
Strasburg : 

the Waldensians in. 115. 

' Heretics' Ditch ' at, 115. 
Strong, A. H., 495. 
Succession, Apostoiic : 

value of a lineal, 1. 

visible succession a snare, 2. 

Robinson, Robert, on, 2. 

sanctity the highest title to legitimacy, 2. 

allied to Church infallibility rather than likeness to 
Christ, 2. 

faith the soul of the, 3. 

no 'Mother' Churches, 3. 

Tertullian on, 3. 

Ambrose on, 3. 

Gregory Nazianzen on, 3. 

Stillingfleet on, 4. 

Bradford on, 4. 

Zanchius on, 4. 

Calvin on, 4. 
Succession of Baptist Churches: 

have we a visible succession from the apostles? 1. 

burden of proof on those who hold to a, 4. 
Sunday-school literature, 50S. 

Supper, the Lord's, 'hawking about' an act of super- 
stition, 316. 
Sutton, John, 539. 
Swale, River, baptisms bv Austin and missionaries in, 

129. 
Swansea, Mass. : 

the Baptist Church at, 298. 

Swansea Church organized, 300. 
Sweden, mission to, 450. 

persecution, 452. 

toleration, 454. 

Sweetzer. Mr., 321, 322. 
Swiss Confession, the, 157. 
Swiss Reformers, 67. 
Sylvester, Richard, 298. 
Symbolism, pictorial. [See Pictup.es.] 
Synods, Post- Apostolic. [See the distinguishing 
titles.] 



604 



GENERAL INDEX. 



T. 

Tasmania, Baptist work in, 559. 

Tauler, John, 65. 

Tavoy, mission to, 43S, 439. 

Taylor, James, 558. 

Taylor, Stephen W., 493. 

' Teaching of the Apostles : ' 

on use of public baths for baptism, 77. 

requires baptism in running water, 92. 
Telugu.s, the mission to, 443. 
1 Tennessee Baptist, The,' 504. 
Tertullian : 

on apostolic succession, 3. 

on anointing in baptism, 95. 
Terwoort, Hendrick, martyrdom of, 154, 155. 
Theological writers, Baptist, 507, 508. 
Thinkers, independent: 

services of, to the Church and humanity, 5, 6. 

Baptists greatly indebted to, 6, 7. 
Thomas, Joshua, 248, 257, 259. 
Thomas, Lewis, 256. 
Thomas, Timothy, 262. 
Thompson, Charles, 337. 

biographical sketch, 415. 
Thornton, J., 559. 
Timpany, A. V., 551. 
Tokio, first baptism in, 445. 
Toledo, Council of (4th) : 

forbids ordination of those unable to read and write, 
71. 

favors sinsjle immersion in Spain, 75, 76. 
Toleration Act, the, 202, 346. 

affords relief to Welsh Baptists, 253. 
Tolland, John, on Milton, 196. 
Tombes, John: 

education and preaching, 174. 

conformation of, 174. 
Torey, Joseph. [See Torrey, Joseph.] 
Toronto, Canada, 548. 
Torrance, John, 553, 554, 555. 
Torrey, Joseph, 299. 
Tradition vs. Scripture, 10. 

force of tradition, 10. 
Transubstantiation, doctrine of: 

becomes crystallized, 83. 

bitter controversy on, 83. 

the Reformers and, 83. 
Triennial Convention, the, 434. 
Trine Immersion : 

warm controversy on in the sixth century, 75. 

upheld by Pope Gregory, 75; 

practiced bv Arians, 75. 
Tristoe, William, 378. 
Tromsoe, Baptist Church founded in, 454. 
Trowbridge, L. H., 506. 
Truth, antiquity of, 8. 
Tucker, Henry Holcombe, 501. 
Tupper, Dr., 543. 
Turkey, mission work in, 449.' 
Turner, William, 322. 
Tyndale, on baptism in his time in England, 131. 



U. 

Union Theological Seminary, Morgan Park, 111., 496. 
Ursian Mosaic, the, 94. 

portrayal of anointing in baptism on, 96, 99. 



V. 

'Valid Baptism,' controversies concerning a, 166, 167. 

Van Dieman's Land. [See Tasmania.] 

Van Horn, Peter P. 337, 377. 

Vanhorn, William, biographical sketch, 415. 

Vardeman, Jeremiah, 463. 

Vassar College, 499. 

Vedder, Henry C, 507. 



Venner, Thomas : 

chosen leader by the Fifth Monarchy Men, 176. 

hanged tor treason, 176. 
Vermont, contest for religious freedom in, 431. 
Vermont, Baptists of: 

the new light revival, 388. 

famous Churches, 388. 

fight for their liberties, 388. 

men of note, 389. 

statistics, 389. 
Verona, baptistery at, 82. 
Very, E. D., 542. 
Victoria, Baptists of, 557. 
Virginia : 

religious persecutions in, 345. 

Quakers punished, 346. 

first Baptist Church in, 347. 

influence of Welsh Baptists in Pennsylvania and 
Delaware felt, 347. 
Virginia, Baptists of: 

early and oppressive laws against, 345. 

first Church, 347. 

early preachers, 348. 

great sufferings of, 349. 

imprisoned, 349, 350. 

the Calvinistic controversy among, 350. 

Bishops or Apostles, 351. 

General Association, the, 351. 

epitaph on Virginia Apostles, 352. 

treated with contempt, 352, 353. 

supported by Madison and Jefferson in the contest 
for free government, 354. 

remarkable growth, 355. 

a General Association formed, 355. 

statistics of, 355. 
■ take a resolute step in favor of independence, 417. 

Thomas Jefferson's relations to, 419. 

resist the effort to establish an episcopacy, 423. 
Virginia Convention, the, 418. 
Voller, James, 557. 



w. 

Wade, Jonathan, 492. 
Waldensians, 9. 

Baptists were originally Waldensians, 51. 

symbols of the sect, 109, 110. 

origin of the name, 109. 

not heretics, 111. 

lay preaching, 112. 

their doctrines at first not obnoxious to Rome, 112. 

people the valleys of Piedmont, 112. 

their motto, 112. 

assailed by the Dukes of Savoy, 112. 

persecuted by Lueian, 113. 

their dispersion, 113, 114. 

reasons for their increase, 116, 117. 

their views on baptism, 117. 

rejected infant baptism, 117, 118. 

testimony of their enemies, 118. 

some Waldensian Baptists, 119. 

Church government, 120. 

methods of labor, 121. 

relations to Rome, 122. 

intense love of Scriptures, 123, 

Conference of Bergamo, 124. 

views on religious liberty, 124, 125. 

crusade of Simon de Montfort against, 125. 

cruelties inflicted on, 126. 

martyrdom of Sager, 127. 
Waldo, Peter : 

founder of the Waldensians, 109. 

birth and conversion, 109. 

begins to preach, 110. 

excommunicated, 111. 

flies to the Cottian Alps, 112, 

death of, 113. 
Waldshut on the Rhine, 69. 
Wales : 

early Christianity in, 247. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



60S 



Wales — Continued. 

Scriptures, early versions of the, 247. 

notable Baptists, 248, ,249, 250. [See Baptists, 
Welsh.] 
Walker, Fowler, 254. 
Walker, Joseph, 503. 
Walker, Warham, 505. 

Wallcott, on roadside baptism of early Christians, 77. 
Waller, John, 350. 
Ward, William, 232. 

Warm water, dipping in allowed in winter, 130. 
Washington, George, attitude toward the Baptists, 426. 
' Watchman, The ' 502. 
' Waterlanders,' the, 157. 
Waterville College, 464. 
Watkins, Joshua, 2fi3. 

Watson, Bishop of London, on practice of dipping, 131. 
Watts, Jacob, 354. 
Watts, John, 332. 
Wayland, Francis, 480, 485. 
Way land, H. L., 507. 
Webb, John, 338. 
Welch, Bartholomew T., 382. 
Welch, James E., 464. 
Wellington, New Zealand, 559. 
Welsh Baptists. [See Baptists, Welsh.] 
Western Australia, 559. 
' Western Recorder, The,' 504. 
Westminster Assembly, on dipping, 141. 
Westminster Directory (1604): 

aspersion declared proper, 132. 
Weston, Henry G., 498. 
Westrup, J. O., 458. 
Weymouth, Mass., 298. 

Whipping, public, of several Boston Baptists, 307, 308. 
Whitaker, on apostolic succession, 3. 
White, Thomas, 347. 
Whitefield, George, 339, 466, 467. 

relations to the Separatists, 340. 

preaching in Connecticut, 364. 

his preaching in New Hampshire, 383. 
Whittier, J. G., on the Waldensian lay preachers, 118. 
Wiberg, A., 453. 

Wickenden, William, origin and career, 366. 
Wicklitf, John, 65. 

Wightman, Edward, burnt at Lichfield, 162. 
Wightman, Gano, 365. 
Wightman, Timothy, 365. 
Wightman, Valentine, 359, 360. 
Willet, Thomas, 299. 

sketch of his career and preaching, 359, 362, 365. 



William and Mary, accession of, 346. 
Williams, John, the translator, 263. 
Williams, Robert, 377. 
Williams, Roger: 

birth and education, 276. 

flight to America, 276. 

driven out of Massachusetts, 277. 

founds the city of Providence, 277. 

an apostle of liberty, 278. 

practiced immersion, 279. 

testimony of, 281, 282. 

Church troubles, 283. 
Williams, William, 258. 
Williams, W. R., 433,477. 
Willoughby, Bliss, 388. 
Wilson, Adam, 503. 
Wilson, B. G., 538, 559. 
Wilson, Franklin, 382. 
Windsor, N. S., 544. 

Wine, baptism in admitted by Pope Stephen, 128. 
Winslow, Governor: 

on the Baptists, 294. 

his lame apology for persecuting Baptists, 303. 
Witter, William, 305, 306. 
Wood, John, 305. 
Woods, William, 354. 
Woodstock Institute, Canada, 554, 557. 
Worcester, Synod of, enjoins immersion, 130. 
Wyckoff, William H., 505, 533. 



Xagu, Gulf, fresh-water springs of, 1. 

Y. 

Yale College, Baptist students expelled from, 362. 
Yates, Thomas, 347. 

York, city, Edwin immersed thereat, 129. 
Ypeig : 

quoted on similarity of the Baptist Churches to the 
Apostolic Church, 50. 

on the Minister madness, 50. 

z. 

Zanchius, on apostolic succession, 4. 
'Zion's Advocate, '503. 
Zwickau, the city of, 104. 



*>s 



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